


sweet on you

by moogle62



Series: sweet on you [1]
Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Blow Jobs, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 72,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/pseuds/moogle62
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BAKERY AU. Mark is Mark, Eduardo owns a bakery/café near the Facebook offices. Mark does not have time to have a thing for him, but he totally, totally does. Sadly for Mark's continued enjoyment of a harassment-free existence, Dustin is still Dustin and is entirely devoted to his causes of a) getting Mark laid, b) acquiring all the gossip, and c) acquiring all the baked goods he can. Featuring novelty shaped cookies, frosting in places frosting should never be, and ~feelings~. Cakes are baked, feelings are felt, and Mark makes his known - eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laliandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laliandra/gifts).



> Once upon a time in fandom, I wrote a bakery au because The Social Network is a cruel cruel movie and all I wanted in the world was these two IDIOTS to be HAPPY and canon seemed to make that an IMPOSSIBLE DREAM. 72k later, I had written more than I ever thought I could and had made friends and more than friends that have honestly changed my life. It's only taken me, like, four years to get round to crossposting this to AO3. GOOD. WELL DONE ME.
> 
> Also, without writing this I would maybe never have met laliandra. Happy birthday, my best love. I would learn a language for you. <3
> 
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> (line art by the wonderful [ellie](http://lordvanquisher.tumblr.com/) and colouring by [robb](http://robinsketchblog.tumblr.com/) )  
> 

i.

"Mark," Eduardo is panting, hot against Mark's neck, and Mark is arching up off the floor against him, and there's frosting fucking everywhere, even in places where frosting really, really doesn't need to be, and Eduardo is biting along the underside of Mark's jaw, and _holy fucking shit_.

In retrospect, Mark really should have seen this coming.

//

Since Facebook became big enough that Mark needed an assistant, Mark has developed a way of working out when he really does need to leave the office and when people are just nagging him unnecessarily. If his assistant is still bringing him Red Bulls without bitching at him about it - he likes the assistants who talk back, because the ones who just blink and do what he says tend to be the ones that quit after he says something to them that Chris comes and shouts at him for - then he's fine. If his assistant starts alternating Red Bulls with water, Mark goes to the cafeteria and gets something to eat, so that when she inevitably asks him if he has, he doesn't have to lie. He thinks Chris maybe somehow hires mind readers, because Lauren always knows if he's lying.

Anyway. There's a steady pattern that unfolds, from Lauren refusing to bring him any more caffeine to sending Dustin in to, what, Mark isn't sure, bug him into going home, maybe, and then, finally, Chris arrives.

Chris is currently leaning against Mark's desk and looking distinctly unimpressed.

"Mark," he says. "Mark. Hey, Mark, I'm not standing here for the good of my health."

"Well, you're not doing mine any good either."

Chris puts his hands over Mark's on the keyboard, stopping him from typing. " _Mark_."

Mark looks up. 

Chris doesn't let go of his fingers. He's holding Mark's gaze like he's telepathically communicating what he wants. Mark isn't telepathic, so that plan is doomed to failure.

"I've been home every night this week," Mark says. "And it's the afternoon, so I'm allowed to be awake."

"That's - not really the point," says Chris. "Have you actually been _outside_ this week?"

"I just said - "

"Yeah," says Chris, "but there's a difference between going from your car to your house to your car to your office, and not dying from lack of Vitamin D."

"That's not a thing," says Mark.

"If anyone could manage it, you could," Chris says. "Please go outside."

"I live in California," Mark says. "I don't think I've got SAD."

"Mark - "

Mark keeps going. "And we've got the updates on Thursday, and I need to - "

"Mark - "

" - work on the profile update, and - "

" _Mark_." 

Mark stops talking.

"If you don't leave this office in the next half hour," Chris says, "I will resort to desperate measures."

Mark says, snorting, "I think I can take it."

Chris raises an eyebrow. "Do you really want to take that chance?"

Mark thinks about being at Harvard for their last set of finals before they left for their first Palo Alto summer, Facebook the only thing on Mark's mind and Chris frantically studying all hours of the day and being determined that Mark should at least _sit the exams_ , even if he refused to study for them, and how, when Mark had been up coding the night before his OS exam and fallen asleep on his keyboard, Chris had had Dustin come in and sing _it's the final countdown_ with unwarranted enthusiasm right in his ear until Mark had woken up and hit him.

Chris is an evil, evil person, is the point.

"Fine," Mark says, finally pulling his hands away from the keyboard and out of Chris's grip. "I'll think about it."

Chris eyes him, walking to the door. "You've got twenty-nine minutes to think about it."

"I'm so scared," Mark dead-pans.

" _Twenty-nine minutes_ , Mark," Chris reiterates, and leaves.

Mark looks back at the unfinished lines of code running across his screen and out of nowhere remembers tumbling through the snow to Kirkland, thinking _relationship status, relationship status_ over and over, toes freezing and the code just _there_ in his head, crystallizing, so that when he got his hands on his keyboard it was all he could do to get it out, frantic, like he hadn't created it at all, like it had been waiting for him to see it all this time.

He looks out of the window. It's sunny, the kind of light that washes everything yellow and sleepy, and he doubts waking somnambulism is really going to inspire great things. On the other hand, he remembers the bite of freezing air on his face and the tight, giddy feeling of everything hurtling into place, and in here he's feeling stagnant and nothing's coming together right, and so he figures it probably can't hurt.

When he leaves his office, Dustin actually cheers, which Mark thinks is a bit of an over-reaction.

"Where're you going, Mark?" Dustin asks, bounding up to him. "Are you going outside?"

Mark swats at him. 

"Chris will be so pleased," Dustin says. "And also, with no ulterior motives at all, let me just say that if you're going for a walk, you should walk past Eduardo’s. And by "past" I mean "into"."

For the last couple of weeks, and Mark has no idea how this started, a weird sort of office tradition has sprung up whereby at lunch, someone nips out and comes back ten minutes later bearing a white bakery box and the entire office crowds round like hyenas to make pornographic noises over cakes and pastries, and then they presumably go and put their icing-sticky fingers all over their keyboards again. Dustin has tried to wave Mark over on a couple of occasions but Mark is pretty good at ignoring him. Then there's the emails --

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you are disturbing the balance of the universe!!!

seriously dude you have to try one of these cakes it's like heaven spat them out

only less revolting and more DELICIOUS FROSTING GOODNESS!!!

 

\- and:

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: marital frosting bliss

can i marry a bakery? is that legal? i think i am going to marry Eduardo’s anyway and have illicit cakey babies

 

 

\-- so Mark gets the enthusiastic picture. He just - he likes cake as much as the next guy but it's not like he's going to drop everything for it. 

Dustin bats his eyelashes, because he's disturbing like that. "Pretty please?"

And, okay, it's not like Mark had a specific idea about where to go once he got outside the Facebook building, so why not.

"Fine, whatever," he says, and Dustin practically beams.

//

It's not like he's expecting at all. Mark somehow has this mental image of all bakeries being, like, _pink_ and staffed entirely by floury, smiling women. This is not the case. Eduardo's has a clean, white front with a big bay window to the left of the door. Inside, there's a light wooden floor and white walls and a few tables and chairs, painted streakily white and the pale wood shows through where the paint is thinnest. At the back there's a glass display case that looks more like the cryo pods in Alien than something that should be in a bakery, and it's stuffed, piled plates edging up on each other over both long shelves. 

"Won't be a second," someone calls, from behind the green curtain at the back of the counter, and the someone is definitely male.

So. Not what Mark was expecting. He looks around, fidgeting. There are power sockets on the walls next to the tables, which Mark definitely approves of. There's also an actual chalkboard on one of the walls detailing drinks and prices, and a complicated-looking coffee machine behind the counter. Mark supposes it's all very welcoming, but he's starting to think code not cake, and he's halfway back to the door when a voice stops him.

"Hi," says the someone from the back of the shop, and Mark turns back round to see a guy about his own age stepping round the curtain, wiping his hands on the apron he's wearing, a pair of oven-gloves slung over his shoulder. Mark's going to go out on a limb and assume this is Eduardo. Okay, so maybe the gender's wrong but this is a little more like _bakery_ in Mark's mind. The guy's smiling, big and genuine, and Mark knows he should stay and buy something but he's thinking again about the app updates coming up Thursday, and potential typos in potentially unchecked third-party code, and his fingers are itching for his keyboard.

"Um," says Mark, "yeah, I have to go."

"So soon?" says the guy, his mouth quirking up into a smile, and Mark just shrugs, not quite understanding his tone, and leaves.

//

Dustin's face actually falls when he sees Mark walk back in empty-handed.

"No cake?" he asks. 

Mark ignores him.

"No cake, no bueno," Dustin calls.

"Shut up, Dustin."

//

Mark's been tooling around with a profile redesign for the last couple of weeks, on and off. It's not quite coming together the way he'd like it to be, and interns have actually started just, like, jumping out of his way if they pass him in the corridors, which is maybe not a good sign. Chris keeps giving him these looks, the ones that mean _Mark, do we need to have a talk? I think we need to have a talk_ which Mark has worked out are always the immediate precursors to Chris staging what he calls _interventions_ and Mark calls _interruptions_ , but Mark knows he's _this close_ from getting it, from making it work, and he wires in and tries to get it done.

Which is, of course, when the power goes out.

This wouldn't be too big of a problem except that Mark has been working on his sofa the whole morning, since Chris came and glowered at him from the doorway when he saw him cracking the kinks out of his spine, and his laptop has started telling him to plug it the fuck in, no, seriously, wire out, you idiot, and plug me in. Mark was honestly going to, any minute, but he's been trying to get to a certain break in the code before he gets up, and now the little battery icon has turned red, and the electricity is down, and fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

He's saved the code, he's not an idiot, and he knows he could move to one of the computers on the main office floor, or appropriate a laptop and bring it back to his office, but it's always jarring, typing on a computer that isn't his own, and the code was finally unfolding for him and he can feel it curling back with every minute his fingers are off the keyboard. He can hear people talking outside his office, surprised, making sure everything is backed up and running okay, and Mark would be more concerned about that if this code wasn't pounding hot through his brain, excluding other thought, like useful ones, like _plug your fucking laptop in_.

He wishes he were back in their sophomore suite at Harvard, headphones over his ears and only having to tune out Dustin and Chris, easy, familiar, and wiring in easily, familiarly. He looks around the office through his big glass wall, and wants to _get out and finish this code_. It thrums in his veins, an actual need. It's too far to his house and his laptop battery wouldn't last the drive, and Mark's drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, thinking lines of code over and over, keeping them there.

And then he remembers, out of nowhere - Eduardo’s; the power points on the walls, the quiet, only an easy, fast walk away.

Dustin pokes his head round the door, saying, "Mark, are you - " but Mark is already grabbing his laptop and the power cord and his headphones, saying, "Call me if anything crashes," and is on his way out.

He barrels through the door at Eduardo’s and slams himself down at one of the little tables, fumbling to get everything plugged in, and then he slaps his headphones on and bashes the code out until it's out of his blood, emails it to himself just in case, and then he sits back and breathes out. This is also when he notices the guy from before, leaning on his elbows across the counter and looking at him with this half amused smile.

"What?" says Mark, king of social niceties, pushing his headphones down around his neck.

"Hello again," says the guy. 

"Hi."

"I'm Eduardo."

"Obviously."

Eduardo smiles, which is confusing, because usually people do the exact opposite when Mark says something like that. "Okay," Eduardo says, "but you don't come with a sign."

"Mark," says Mark, still slightly thrown. "Why are you looking at me?"

"You're the only one in here," says Eduardo. "I mean, that, and you came flying in here so fast I thought maybe you were being chased by angry bees or something."

Mark doesn't know what to say.

Eduardo says, "You know, in case the bees were distracted by all the sugar."

"Bees make honey," Mark says, because when all else fails, being right is usually his fallback option. "Why would they chase me to a bakery when they've got all the honey they want at home?"

Eduardo shrugs. "You were the one being chased," he says. "Why'd you seek refuge in here?"

Mark stares at him. "You know I wasn't actually being chased by bees, right?"

Eduardo laughs, like Mark's said something really funny. Mark isn't really sure what's happening.

"Can I get you something?" Eduardo says. "Coffee? Cookie? Bee-repellent?"

Mark abruptly remembers two things: one, he doesn't have his wallet on him, and two, you're supposed to order something before you abuse the electricity and/or internet privileges of a shop.

It must show on his face or something, because when he looks back up from patting his pockets down in a futile search for spare change, Eduardo's smile has gone crooked, like Mark is genuinely just that entertaining. It's kind of endearing. Mark has never really found anything endearing before. He starts gathering up his laptop.

"No, wait," says Eduardo, and Mark turns to stare at him again. "It's fine, I'll start you a tab or something."

Mark says, "You do that here?"

Eduardo shrugs. "I can make an exception."

"I don't want to be an exception," Mark says. 

"Sure you do," says Eduardo, easily, and Mark goes hot all over, thinking of watching hazings and never being punched. "Come on, I make a great latte."

"Ugh," says Mark, before he can stop himself. "No thanks, I'm not a girl."

"You're wearing flip-flops."

"Flip-flops are unisex," says Mark, going hotter. "And do you usually talk to your customers this way?"

"Ah," says Eduardo, "but you haven't bought anything yet, so you can't be a customer."

"Black coffee, then," says Mark. "And less abuse."

Eduardo grins at him. "Yes, sir."

"That's better," says Mark, and finds himself grinning back without really meaning to. 

Eduardo turns his back to use the ridiculous coffee machine, and Mark looks back at his laptop and starts tweaking bits of code here and there, and doesn't look up again until Eduardo slides a cup onto the table next to him.

"Thanks," says Mark, remembering.

"And take this," says Eduardo, and he presses a biscotti into Mark's hand. Eduardo's fingers are warm, Mark notices.

"I didn't - " Mark says, but Eduardo cuts him off.

"Call it an incentive to come back," he says, and touches Mark's elbow before leaving him to it.

Mark dunks the biscotti into the coffee, because he is a child, and it's really, stupidly good.

"What time do you open tomorrow?" he blurts, swallowing a mouthful of crumbs.

Eduardo smiles some more. Mark has literally never met anyone this friendly, and he knows Dustin. "Half seven," he says.

"I guess I could come by in the morning," Mark says. "You know, to settle my tab."

"Sounds good," Eduardo says. His smile goes all the way into his eyes. He is like a cartoon person, Mark thinks. "See you then."

//

The power is back when Mark gets back to the office, and Dustin pounces on him the second he walks through the door, following Mark into his office and hopping up onto his desk while Mark sets out his laptop again.

"So, Mark," he says. "Where'd you run off to?"

"Somewhere with working electricity," says Mark.

"That only rules out here," says Dustin, tapping his fingers against his chin like this actually requires thought. "Mark, if you don't tell me, I will just start naming places until you give in."

Mark ignores him. Sadly, this is not a strategy that ever works with Dustin, but it doesn't mean he's not going to give it some concerted effort.

"Starbucks?" says Dustin. "A library? Pluto? _Mars_?"

Mark's eye is twitching a little.

"Did you just set up a sign on the street that said _will sell body for battery packs_? Give me a clue at least."

"Why does this matter to you so much?"

Dustin shrugs. "You are my reason to breathe, my light, my soul, my air - "

" _Dustin_ \- "

"- and my boss, and you have terrible people skills, and Chris said I needed to check to see if he needed to run damage control."

"Jesus Christ, I wasn't gone that long."

"Yeah," says Dustin, "but you did sort of storm out of here, so you can see his point."

Mark cannot really see his point.

"I went to Eduardo's," he says, in the futile hope that this will finally make Dustin leave him alone, but, alas, the opposite happens.

" _Eduardo's_?" screeches Dustin, like Mark had said _the White House_. "Mark, tell me you were well-behaved."

"I'm not a fucking puppy, Dustin, it's not like I'm going to start chewing the furniture or anything."

Dustin eyes him warily. "We can't have you out scaring the populace. Especially not the populace at Eduardo’s, because if we stopped being served there I think we might all die of sugar-withdrawal."

"It was fine," says Mark, trying to elbow Dustin off his desk. "Eduardo was fine about it, everything was fine."

Dustin does something obscene with his eyebrows and doesn't budge. " _Eduardo_?"

"Yeah, you know, the bakery guy."

" _The bakery guy_?" Dustin says, in the same tone that other people might say _The Beatles_ , like Mark using his name so casually is causing Dustin actual physical pain.

"Dustin, you have to stop repeating everything I say or I am going to brain you with a stapler."

"Pffft," says Dustin. "I'd like to see you try."

"Go away," says Mark. "The grown-ups have busy work to do."

"The grown-ups have a _crush_ on _bakery guy_ ," says Dustin, and Mark splutters, completely caught off guard.

" _What_?"

"He's the person you turned to in your time of need," Dustin says, sounding absolutely delighted. "Oh my god, Mark, it's almost like you're a _real_ boy!"

"Get out," says Mark, not even trying to hide his horror. "Please, please, get out."

"You want to put your plug in his socket!" Dustin calls, backing towards the door, and Mark lobs the stapler at his face.

//

Mark goes to Eduardo's before he goes to work the next morning, partly because he'd said he would, and partly because he's been thinking about what Dustin said - which is never a good path to go down - and okay, maybe he was a little _preoccupied_ yesterday, and maybe he should have, like, asked if it was okay or whatever before he wired in. Whatever. Mark's priorities don't really leave room for _asking_ in situations like that.

Eduardo isn't in the front of the shop when Mark walks in, so he waits by the counter for a minute, feeling a bit ridiculous.

"Hello?" he says, after a bit.

Eduardo comes round the curtain with flour all down his shirt, but he's smiling anyway. How can one person smile so much? Mark wonders if his face hurts after a while. He also wonders who the hell wears a dress shirt to _bake_ in, but then he's not the world's expert on sartorial choices so he can't really comment.

"Mark," Eduardo says, brushing the flour off with the flat of his hand, beaming. "Hi."

Mark slides some money across the counter. "Here," he says. "Consider my tab settled."

"Great," says Eduardo. "Can I get you a coffee?"

"Yes," says Mark, and in the same breath, "but not on my tab."

"Looking for a clean slate, is that it?"

Mark doesn't know what to say to that.

"I'm kidding," says Eduardo.

"I know," says Mark.

There's a brief pause and then Eduardo turns back from turning on the coffee machine and says, "So, tell me what you do."

"What?" says Mark.

"You looked pretty busy yesterday," Eduardo elaborates. 

"Oh, yeah," says Mark, because, after all, he does sort of, maybe, owe Eduardo an explanation for that one. "Um, the power went out in our offices and I was in the middle of - something, so. It was pretty important."

"Obviously," says Eduardo, like maybe it wasn't. Mark has gotten used to people just agreeing with him about that, so it takes him a second to react.

"I'm CEO," he says, defensive. "Everything I do is important."

Eduardo raises his eyebrows. "CEO?" He passes Mark his coffee. Their fingers brush. Mark is pretending he didn't notice.

"Yeah," says Mark, again, and then, all in a rush, because he never stops wanting to tell people, and because Eduardo is looking at him with dark, impressed eyes, "It's Facebook, I invented Facebook."

"Facebook?" says Eduardo. "Oh my god, seriously?"

"Seriously."

"That's - so - " Eduardo's face does something complicated-looking, and he goes, "Oh my god, you're Mark _Zuckerberg_ ," which never really gets old either.

Mark nods, burning his tongue on the gulp of coffee he takes to keep from grinning inappropriately at him.

Eduardo's eyes are really wide. "Your assistant, Lauren," he says, which is not where Mark was expecting this to go, "she comes here every day."

Mark nods again. "Yeah."

" _Every_ day."

"Yeah, um," Mark isn't really sure what this has to do with anything, but whatever. "Everyone's sort of obsessed with you at work. I mean, your baking. It's practically a cult."

Eduardo looks so unbelievably flattered that Mark has to look away and fidget with the strap of his backpack. He hadn't really noticed yesterday, what with the power going out and the code like a physical need in the back of his mind, but Eduardo is sort of unnecessarily attractive. He's got the biggest eyes Mark has seen outside of, like, the anime his sister makes him watch when he goes home for the holidays, and stupidly dramatic hair, and he's sort of stupidly nice to boot. Mark really, really doesn't need this to happen but he's getting the same sort of lost, hot feeling he got when he'd been pacing the floor at Harvard, saying to a confused, slightly drunk Dustin, _it'll be like taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online_ , dizzy with spooling, unraveling, possibilities. That was better, obviously, because that was Mark's, possibilities he was fucking dragging up around him, but this is almost as heady.

Mark jams his hands in his pockets, and tries to get a grip.

"A cult?" Eduardo is saying. "So am I, like, the leader or just the conduit for baked goods?"

Mark shrugs. "You're an enabler."

"You basically bought my new oven," Eduardo says. "So, thanks."

"It wasn't me," Mark says, honestly. "But, um. Okay."

Eduardo laughs, all open and happy; Mark really suddenly has to go and be anywhere else until he can stop thinking ridiculous things about Eduardo's mouth.

"Um," he says again, because he is gifted with the art of sparkling conversation, "I have to go. Work. You know."

"I do sort of know," says Eduardo, still smiling at him. "Work. Go do Facebook things."

"I will," says Mark. "You go bake things."

Eduardo laughs again, like this is legitimately funny. Mark needs to leave, like, much, much faster than he is doing.

"Okay then," he says, awkwardly. "Thanks for the coffee."

He's heading for the door when Eduardo says, "Come back anytime, though," and he probably says it to everyone, because he's polite and friendly and running a business, but Mark says, "Yeah, okay," and surprises himself by actually meaning it.

//

He walks through the bakery door the next morning, and Eduardo smiles like seeing Mark shuffling in with sleep still in his eyes and a creased hoody on is the best thing that could have happened to him.

"Hello again," he says. "Coffee?"

" _Fast_ coffee," Mark mumbles, belligerent with the morning at large, and Eduardo smiles bigger, all crinkly and warm, and Mark is so fucking gone it isn't even funny, and it's taken no time at all.

//

It becomes a sort of routine after that, Mark slumping in half-asleep before work, or between hours of work if he hasn't slept at all, and Eduardo always smiling bright at him like he's the second coming, making Mark blush.

It's usually quiet in the bakery when Mark's around in the morning, and when he can't face going into the office without more caffeine in his system, he sits at one of the tables near the counter and listens to Eduardo moving around in the kitchen. He hums to himself while he stirs cake batter, or rolling out dough for ginger cookies, or chopping up blocks of chocolate, and Mark leans his head back against the chair, closes his eyes and thinks of lines of code looping out in front of him to the same tune. He catches himself humming them at work, sometimes, and catches Lauren raising an eyebrow at Chris when he passes, both of them looking in at him through the big glass wall in his office. 

One morning, Eduardo is rolling round chocolate truffles in chocolate sprinkles, the next he's coaxing what look like individual pineapple upside-down cakes out of their little plastic moulds, the next he's spooning _dulce de leche_ over plain, yellow cake, cupcakes. He looks up and catches Mark's eye, and tells him about his mother letting him help in the kitchen sometimes during hot, slow Brazilian summers, or his nanny teaching him dessert recipes once he'd finished his homework. He says their names, _quindim, brigadeiro_ , slipping easily into the Portuguese, and Mark has to drag his eyes away from Eduardo's mouth shaping the words, his fingers slipping on the keys of his phone, checking his email in a nervous tic.

In return, Mark tells him about the trials and tribulations of sharing a suite with Dustin, and the time they drew a moustache on Chris when he fell asleep on the sofa and it turned out to be a _really_ permanent marker and Chris had had to go to the student health centre to see if they could, like, bleach it off or something, and how Dustin learned all the cheats to Mario Kart faster than he learned to code when he needed to, and watches Eduardo lick frosting off his fingers, checking the taste. They fall into conversation and silence by turn, equally companionable, and Mark starts to resent the presence of other customers when Eduardo turns his attention full-beam onto them, and it's the first time Mark's felt like this, like he might want someone to _want_ him rather than recognise what he can do. 

Sometimes he watches Eduardo piping frosting onto cupcakes or decorating sugar cookies with coloured icing, watches his long fingers, the way he frowns to concentrate, licks his lips when there's a complicated pattern to ice. It is basically pornography, and Mark sometimes has to tear his eyes away and think about server statistics or what little he retained from his art history classes until his body stops embarrassing him and it's safe to stand up.

It turns out to be sort of easy, being around Eduardo, comfortable without Mark really having to make an effort, and he's the first person outside Mark's family that Mark can just _talk_ to, because whenever Mark says something actually offensive, Eduardo just laughs, or pretends to tell him off, and Mark shivers all down his spine. It's just Mark's luck that when he finally finds someone he can be completely at ease around, he wants him so much that he just can't do it, can't unwind the way he thinks he could do if Eduardo would just stop sending him those little crooked smiles.

He jerks off one night in the shower, helplessly, thinking about big dark eyes and Eduardo on his knees, his mouth around Mark's cock, and then about Eduardo on his back, fingers gripping white and tight in Mark's sheets, wet mouth open, moaning broken Portuguese, and comes so hard he has to lean his forehead against the slick tile wall and try to catch his breath while his legs stop shaking.

He can't look Eduardo in the eye the next morning, but it's really, really worth it.

//

At some point, and despite Mark's best efforts, Dustin finds out that he's going to Eduardo's before work most days and doesn't so much insist on tagging along as he does just pop up outside the bakery doors when Mark turns up one morning. 

"What?" Dustin says, all fake wide-eyed innocence, when Mark glares morningly at him. It's been a week or so of only catching a few hours sleep here and there, tweaking the profile update unrelentingly ready for making the change at the end of the week, and he is not quite conscious enough to make conversation yet. "I like the cookies, okay?"

Except, obviously, he has a gigantic ulterior motive, which manifests spectacularly clearly when Eduardo comes out from the kitchen, and Dustin all but trips over his own feet saying hello.

"You're real!" he says. "I mean, I knew you were real, but - you're real."

"I think you'll find rumours of my existence have been greatly exaggerated," says Eduardo, gamely, and grins at Mark, who is slumped in one of the chairs and pretending none of this is happening. It's too early for this shit. "Coffee, Mark?"

Mark nods as vigorously as he can at eight in the morning. 

"Two shots or one?"

"Seven," says Mark, childishly. "Dustin's face is hurting my eyes."

"I am offended," says Dustin, who is obviously not. He turns back to Eduardo. "I'm also Dustin."

"I gathered," says Eduardo, still grinning. "Nice to meet you."

He does something fiddly with the coffee machine, and then there's a ping from the kitchen.

"Excuse me," he says. "That'll be the brownies." 

He disappears back behind the curtain, and Dustin turns to Mark, actually agog, which is something to behold. Dustin has, like, a plasticine face. He makes the most ludicrous expressions of anyone Mark knows.

"Okay," he says. "I know why _normal_ people come here, because eating the cake is like eating rainbows, but you are abnormal and shun deliciousness when it is dangled in a box in front of your face, so I knew _that_ wasn't it - but now I totally get why you come here."

"For the quality of the clientele?"

Dustin pats him on the shoulder and folds himself energetically into the chair opposite. "One, you are a customer too, so you just insulted yourself, well done, and two, _have you seen Eduardo_? I mean. Dude. Seriously."

Mark opens his eyes and squints at him, unimpressed.

" _Seriously_ ," Dustin reiterates.

Mark closes his eyes again.

"Wait till I tell Chris that you've been consorting with a hot baker," Dustin continues, unabashed. "He'll be so jealous."

"Who'll be so jealous?" asks Eduardo, coming back out of the kitchen carrying a tray of brownies. Mark slumps further down in his chair and tries to think of ways that, if this were only a virtual reality, he could code a way for the earth to swallow him up, but is distracted halfway through by the silence coming from Dustin's side of the table. 

He clicks his fingers in front of Dustin's face, but Dustin is fixed on the brownies the way he used to stare at Mario Kart when Chris was in the lead by split seconds, and shaving off a corner could get Dustin a win. 

"Oh my god," says Dustin. "Is it too early for brownies? It's not too early for brownies, right? It can never be too early for brownies, right? Right, Mark? Right?"

"By all means, ingest more sugar, that will help," Mark grumbles, and hears Eduardo laugh from behind the counter.

"Here," says Eduardo, coming over with Mark's coffee. He squeezes Mark's shoulder when he sets the cup down on the table, standing just behind Mark's chair. Mark lets himself lean his cheek against Eduardo's long fingers just this once, because he's tired, and because Eduardo touched him first, so it must be okay. 

Dustin is looking at him oddly across the table, and Mark is definitely too tired to care exactly what that expression is, but there's something more subtle than Dustin's usual grin going on. Whatever. Mark clasps his hand around the coffee cup and takes a grateful sip.

"Careful," Eduardo warns, like he does every morning and Mark never listens. He says, "It's hot," at exactly the same time as Mark burns his tongue and winces, and Mark feels him laugh.

"I think you should give Mark your number," says Dustin, decisively, and Mark chokes on his coffee. "He's almost out of red vines and he might, er, go into hypoglycemic shock or something and need emergency cake."

Mark can't look up at Eduardo or he doesn't know what he'll do. Something inadvisable, probably. It's not fair that Eduardo should look so put-together so early in the morning. Mark needs caffeine and his hands on a keyboard in order to wake up properly, and he is definitely not awake enough for Dustin to be doing this, and also Eduardo's hand is still on Mark's shoulder, and, just, what the hell.

Dustin kicks Mark under the table, and winks. "Don't say I never do you any favours."

Mark turns exceptionally, unpreventably, red, but Eduardo just laughs and digs a pen out from his shirt pocket, scribbling something down on a napkin and handing it to Mark.

"In case of red vine withdrawal emergencies," he says. "I am very happy to be a back-up supply of refined sugar."

Mark can actually _see_ Dustin physically bite back some horrifying comment along the lines of _Mark, he could be your sugar daddy!_ for which he will be forever grateful.

"I'll keep that in mind," Mark says, folding the napkin into the pocket of his jeans. Eduardo gives him this little soft smile. Mark wants to kiss him so fucking much he doesn't know what to do about it, so he just fidgets and eventually Eduardo turns back to Dustin, and Mark dips his fingers just inside his pocket, touches the top of the napkin like it's going to disappear.

On the way to work, Dustin keeps up a steady stream of hyperbole about Eduardo's face and Eduardo's eyes and Eduardo's smile. Just before they go inside, Mark says, "Jesus, Dustin, if you like the guy so much, just ask him out already."

"Don't be jealous, Marky, it's not attractive."

"Fuck off," Mark says, without any real heat to it. 

Dustin stops walking and catches hold of Mark's arm. Mark turns to him, surprised. Despite Dustin being _Dustin_ , an emotional octopus in human form, he doesn't tend to touch Mark as often as he does everyone else.

"Dude," Dustin says, and he's suddenly uncharacteristically serious. "Seriously though, I mean - he's clearly - you're clearly - if you asked him - "

Mark pulls his arm away and changes the subject before Dustin can get a full sentence out. "I am never letting you have any sugar ever again," he says. "I am going to tell Chris you had brownies for breakfast."

Dustin gasps, switching moods to match Mark instantly, turning a circle on his heel with his hands clasped over his heart, hamming it up for all he's worth. "Et tu, Brutus," he cries. "What happened to our sugary morning love?"

"Your face happened," Mark says, and Dustin pretends to pout.

Later, Mark texts Eduardo, _sorry about dustin, he's special._

 _Mark?_ comes the reply, like there's been a whole stream of people and their irrepressibly cheerful friends called Dustin traipsing through Eduardo's that morning, and: _he's nice. you have nice friends. they suit you :)_

Mark puts his phone in his pocket and tries not to smile too stupidly down at his keyboard.

//

The update is scheduled for Friday and Mark barely sleeps, paranoid the way he is every time they make a change, that he's missing something, that something is wrong. He checks and rechecks his code, writes and rewrites it, barely sleeping. Chris leaves him to it. Mark knows he was worse when he was younger and Facebook younger still, but he can't stop it, eyes growing gritty from the laptop light, snapping at his assistant, which is going to come back to haunt him when this is done, because Lauren's not the shy and retiring type, but he isn't thinking about that now. He's missing something, he knows he is. He just - he can't see it. 

Friday rolls around, and Mark is exhausted, dropping into Eduardo's on auto-pilot rather than purposeful thought after two hours fitful sleep at home, waking in a sweat, convinced he's missed the update going live. He shuffles down in his chair, leans his head back, closes his eyes and listens to the sound of the coffee machine and Eduardo stacking the display case, the hissing of steam and the clatter of plates.

He jerks abruptly awake some time later to Eduardo's hand on his shoulder, and doesn't know what day it is or how long he's been out.

"What," he says, heart pounding in his ears, and then he rubs his eyes and actually wakes up a bit more, takes in his surroundings. "What's the time?"

"Nine," Eduardo says, and Mark has been asleep for an hour, fuck. He's prickling with embarrassment and the remnants of the adrenaline, knows he sleeps open-mouthed and unguarded, and apparently now he sleeps in _public_ , and if his breath smells like it tastes then he really doesn't want to know. Eduardo's fingers tighten slightly around Mark's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm late," snaps Mark, getting to his feet, but he genuinely hasn't slept properly for going on three days and he's dizzy, and he grabs the back of his chair. Eduardo grabs his elbow to steady him, and Mark lets him until his head has cleared enough that he can pull away.

Eduardo watches him pack away his laptop. "Mark," he says, and he sounds sort of worried, which is ridiculous, because why would he be worried about Mark? "Mark, sit down, okay, when was the last time you ate?"

"I'm too late to eat," Mark says, shortly, shoving his laptop into his bag. "You shouldn't have let me sleep, I need to - " He stops, wide-eyed, because Eduardo has caught hold of his hand. Mark has poor circulation; Eduardo's hands are warm enough that it makes Mark notices how cold he was before.

"Just," says Eduardo, and he's giving Mark this look Mark doesn't understand, "just, wait a second, okay?"

Eduardo still has hold of Mark's hand, and Mark nods, dumbly, curling his fingers against Eduardo's palm.

Eduardo nods back, pleased, and disappears into the kitchen at the back. Mark runs his thumb over the backs of his fingers where his skin is still warm from Eduardo's touch. He's tired.

Eduardo reappears with a brown paper lunch bag, like he's about to send Mark off to school. Mark makes a face that hopefully expresses this sentiment, but Eduardo just turns him round and unzips his backpack, and puts the bag in there. He pats Mark's shoulders.

"There," he says. "Now you won't starve."

"I wouldn't have starved," says Mark, disconcerted.

Eduardo says fondly, "Sugar is not a food group, Mark."

"Says the guy who runs a bakery."

"Weren't you late for something?" Eduardo says, but he's smiling.

Mark says, "Yes, shit," and heads to the office at pace. Chris is scowling when he arrives, and shepherds him into the meeting as soon as he steps off the elevator, and so it's another couple of hours before Mark gets back to his office. His stomach actually growls.

Chris says, "Have you eaten anything today?" all sort of resigned like he's expecting Mark to say no.

"No," Mark says, and Chris makes a face, and then Mark remembers, "but I've got something, so."

Chris looks like he doesn't know what to do with that information. "You... brought food?"

Mark says, slightly annoyed, "Yes, _Christopher_ , I'm not a child."

He brings the brown bag out of his backpack and reaches inside. It's a tuna salad sandwich.

Mark really likes tuna.

He sort of stares at it for a moment, and Chris sort of stares at it, and then Dustin shoves his head round the door, displaying his alarming tendency to know exactly when Mark doesn't want him around and then show up anyway. "I smell gossip!" He pauses, and then goes, "Actually, I smell _fish_. Mark, have you sprouted gills? Do we need to work on finding waterproof laptops?"

"We need to work on finding Dustin-proof doors," Mark mutters.

"I know you don't mean that," Dustin says.

Chris says, "I mean it."

Dustin catches sight of the sandwich in Mark's hands. "That's not from the cafeteria," he says, frowning, because leave it to Dustin to be able to spot a sandwich intruder from ten paces away, and then his face lights up. "Is that from _Eduardo_?"

"No," Mark lies, going red.

Dustin looks highly delighted. "He made you _lunch_?"

"No," Mark insists. "He sort of just gave me it."

Chris says, "He just _gave_ you it?"

"Yes," Mark says. It's slowly occurring to him that this is actually really weird. Like, Eduardo runs a bakery, not a sandwich shop, so why does he randomly have sandwiches lying around in to-go bags in his kitchen?

He gets out his phone and texts, frowning, _was that your lunch?_

 _Was what my lunch?_ is the reply.

The tuna sandwich, Mark sends, rolling his eyes as if Eduardo can see him. _What else would I be talking about?_

 _I can make another one_ , Eduardo replies. _You can't be trusted in a kitchen._

_There's a cafeteria here. I wouldn't waste away or anything._

_Right_ , sends Eduardo, and Mark can feel the sarcasm through the screen, which is pretty impressive.

He looks up, suddenly aware that Dustin is staring at him like he's sprouted wings or dispensing glitter or something. 

"What?"

"Were you just texting Eduardo?"

Mark can't be bothered to lie this time. Talking to Dustin is like talking to a rollercoaster: it's just going to barrel on regardless, so you might as well get on board. "Yes."

"I knew it." Dustin's voice has gone all funny and strangled. "Your face went all weird."

"My face is not weird."

"Your face is very weird, Mark, my friend, but you went all - all - " Dustin looks to Chris for help. Chris will not help, Mark is sure. This can all stop happening and he can eat his fucking sandwich in peace.

"Gentle," says Chris, and he sounds funny too, and Mark feels endlessly betrayed. "You looked gentle."

Mark isn't sure if Dustin could look any happier if he tried.

//

The update goes live at five Friday evening, and Mark stays later than even he's used to, constantly refreshing the page, drumming his fingers against his keyboard when he's not actively typing. Nothing goes wrong. Nothing crashes. It goes off without a hitch, but Mark is so _sure_ there's something looming that he can't make himself go home. Chris comes in around one in the morning, bleary-eyed, and tells him he's worrying about nothing, and Mark says, "If you're so sure, why are you still here?" and Chris gives him a look like he's missing the blatantly obvious, and sighs, and gets him another Red Bull.

If Red Bull gives you wings, Mark should be in the fucking stratosphere by now.

But the weekend passes, and everything's fine, and there's only the usual rumblings of dissent that happen when Mark changes something around and no actual mutiny, and by Sunday night statuses are starting to say things like _this is so much better!!_ and _don't know how i lived without this :DD_ and Mark's so tired and so relieved that when he goes home, he sleeps through till Monday afternoon.

When he swings by Eduardo's on his way to work, out of habit, he feels like a different person than the one he was last week, like something's been lifted clean away. 

"Hello," says Eduardo, when Mark walks up to the counter. "I don't normally see you at this time of day."

"I know," says Mark, and there's a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, like the thing that's lifted took his reserve with it, because the update was a fucking success and Eduardo is really, really handsome. "There's an afternoon, who knew?"

"Stop the presses," says Eduardo. He starts prepping Mark's coffee without Mark even having to ask, turning over his shoulder to offer Mark a bright-eyed smile. "So, the update went well?"

"Nothing blew up," says Mark, and Eduardo gives him this look like _you are the least modest person I have ever met, stop wasting my time with this pretence_ , and Mark lets himself grin like he wants to, really fucking pleased, and says, "Yeah, it went really, really well."

Eduardo hands him his drink. "I'd say well done, but it seems unnecessary."

"Just because I can congratulate myself doesn't mean you shouldn't do it as well."

"I was going to say it seemed unnecessary because I knew it would go well," Eduardo says, and he's gone slightly, shyly, pink. "But congratulations anyway."

"Thanks," says Mark, completely insincerely, to make Eduardo laugh, but his chest feels sort of warm, idiotically, and he bites his lip a little, turning his coffee cup round to have something to do with his hands. He's just _happy_ , here with Eduardo, and his site is working, and he's not dragging with exhaustion, and he just stops, and sort of gets out of his own way, and lets it in.

"Do you want to come for a drink tonight?" says Eduardo, sort of out of the blue, and Mark isn't actually sure he's heard him right for a minute, too caught up in his own head. "I mean, you're probably busy, but - "

"Yes," Mark says, quickly, before Eduardo can take it back, "yes, yeah."

"Yes?"

Mark's heart is beating too fast, and he's not sure what Eduardo is actually asking, not quite capable of separating out his hope from the question, but: "Yeah."

Eduardo is beaming at him. It makes Mark feel stupid, and he thinks of Chris saying _you looked gentle_. He shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn't let himself look at the colour creeping in further over Eduardo's cheeks.

//

 

Mark sort of hangs around awkwardly that evening while Eduardo cleans the shop counter and locks up for the night, and then they walk a couple of blocks to a place Eduardo says he knows. Eduardo slings an arm over Mark's shoulders, natural, like he does it all the time, and Mark tries not to do anything embarrassing like leaning too far into his touch. 

Inside, Eduardo says he'll get the drinks and Mark tries to insist on paying, because _billionaire_ , and because he sort of wants to, but Eduardo gives him a mock-stern look and he pretends to relent before shoving a couple of dollars in Eduardo's coat pocket when he goes up to the bar and isn't looking.

He half expects Eduardo to get some girly drink, something pink with sugar round the rim of the glass, because he still can't shake the whole baking-is-for-girls thing even though rationally he knows it's stupid. Eduardo comes back from the bar with two bottles of beer, and Mark is pleasantly surprised.

"Cheers," Eduardo says, and they clink the tops of the bottles together and drink. 

Mark watches Eduardo take a pull, his lips wrapping around the glass neck, and actually goes hot.

Over the course of the evening, Eduardo tells him about earning three hundred thousand dollars by predicting the fucking weather, and using it to start up the bakery.

"What the hell," Mark says, possibly slightly drunk. "Three hundred thousand dollars by predicting the _weather_?"

Eduardo shrugs. "Betting oil futures."

"Jesus."

Eduardo laughs, taking a drag from his beer. Mark thinks this is maybe the third round, but he can't be sure. Maybe it's the fourth. Mark's been getting the drinks since the first, insisting over Eduardo's - jokingly, gesticulatory - vehement protestations, so he should really know how many they've had, but it's been a while since he's been out like this, maybe not since Harvard. The first summer in Palo Alto was mostly just coding, and parties somehow springing up or maybe just never dying out at the house, so that wasn't so much _going out_ as maintaining a fluctuating state of being more or less buzzed. He's sort of missed this though, sitting in a bar with someone. He looks up and sees Eduardo looking back, leaning forward on his elbows to listen to Mark, and Mark thinks maybe he's never had something quite like this to miss. He wishes he could tell what Eduardo thinks this is.

"This coming from the guy who invented Facebook?"

"That wasn't about the money," Mark says. 

Eduardo looks like he's not sure whether to believe him. Mark gets that it does sound pretty ridiculous, especially since he's, like, the youngest billionaire in the world or something. He gets that people who weren't there, who didn't see it rise up out of a shared suite at Harvard and nights passing without sleep and enough Red Bulls to make him nauseous and glances out of his window to see guys being hazed while he initiated himself into his own new servers, those people might well doubt that it wasn't about the money. But it wasn't.

"It _wasn't_ ," Mark insists. And, okay, it's stupid, and, okay, he's more than a little buzzed right now, but he really wants Eduardo to get it, to understand. He reaches out across the water-ringed table and grabs Eduardo's wrist. He can feel the curve of wrist bone under his thumb.

"Wardo," he says, slipping the first syllable like sobriety, "it wasn't about the money."

Eduardo looks down at Mark's hand. Mark looks at Eduardo's dark eyelashes fanning out across the upper curve of his cheekbones. 

"All right," says Eduardo. "It wasn't about the money."

Mark levels a glance at him.

Eduardo puts his hand on top of Mark's. "Seriously," he says. His voice is all low. Mark notices that the Portuguese catch to his accent is stronger the less sober he gets. " _Seriously_ ," Eduardo says. He laughs again, letting Mark's hand go, and Mark feels its absence even in the heat of the bar. "What, you think I run a _bakery_ for the money?"

He takes another swig from his beer, and Mark draws his hand back to his side of the table. He feels odd, like when you walk into a room someone's just walked out of and, just for a second, you catch their mood. He feels like that, like he's just missed something. He shivers. He wants to ask Eduardo why he does run a bakery, wants to ask him things he's never asked anyone, to _know him_ , but there's something about the way Eduardo holds his shoulders when he sets the beer back down, something defensive that Mark is pretty sure he hasn't entirely caused, that convinces him to change tack.

"I would have thought your bakery was quite lucrative," he says, and he stumbles on some of the consonants, halfway to slurring. "I mean, my staff seem to buy enough cake to get you at least, like, a pony or something."

Eduardo laughs again, tipping his head back, tension relaxing out, and Mark watches the strong line of his throat and laughs too, because it's infectious. He's still so _happy_ , sitting here with drinks and Eduardo, and it's maybe the longest he's gone without thinking about code since before CourseMatch.

"I don't want a pony," Eduardo says, shaking his head for emphasis. 

"No?"

"Nope."

"You look like the kind of person who would want a pony."

"Yeah?"

"You know," Mark waves a hand in Eduardo's general direction. "Big eyes. Stupid, happy face. If you were a girl you'd have, like, pink ribbons in your hair."

Eduardo looks like he's considering this, and Mark drains the last of his beer. 

"I do have a hairnet," Eduardo offers.

Mark snorts with laughter, and Eduardo looks pleased. 

"Is it pink?"

"What, my hairnet?"

"Yes, your hairnet." Hairnet doesn't even sound like a word anymore. They're both giggling ridiculously, childishly. Mark doesn't even feel self-conscious about it, like he might do ordinarily, and he thinks maybe he could feel like this all the time, if Eduardo were with him, but then maybe that could just be the beer.

Eduardo rubs a hand over his mouth, but his smile doesn't go away. 

"Fuck," he says, unevenly, like the laugh is still trying to break through. "What's the time?"

It's harder than it should be for Mark to shove the sleeve of his hoodie up off his wrist so he can see his watch.

"Almost eleven?" Mark sometimes -- _usually_ , who is he trying to kid - hasn't even left his desk yet.

"Fuck," Eduardo says, again, and he tips back the last of his drink. "I have to be up early tomorrow."

Mark twists in his seat a little, out of the blue feeling like a girl at the end of a date. That's ridiculous on two levels, because Mark's still unsure what this actually was, and because Mark's not a girl, but. It still feels like a brush-off.

"All right," Mark shrugs, reaching down under his chair for his backpack. "Yeah, I mean, I should be getting off too." 

Eduardo's mouth looks like he's trying to keep back a grin. "Yeah?"

Mark can feel himself going red. "I meant - "

Eduardo kicks him gently under the table. "I know what you meant."

Mark doesn't know what's supposed to happen now. In college, the end of a night usually meant the end of an AEPi thing where everyone sort of tipped out back to their dorms in various degrees of sobriety, or leaving a bar with Dustin and Chris, listening to Dustin babble drunkenly about how he totally had a chance with that girl, didn't they see how she was totally flirting with him, while Mark helped Chris help Dustin not fall into bushes or anything on the way back to the dorm and then passed out on his bed in his clothes. At the end of dates, everything was more awkward, Mark trying to figure out what was wanted of him. He's not socially unaware, he can read other people better than they appreciate, but he can't parse them when they turn themselves on him. What he's saying is, he has no frame of reference for this, vacillating between a date and grabbing a drink, and he doesn't - he doesn't know what he should do.

Eduardo's pulling on his coat, a well-cut black affair with deep pockets and neat lapels. It suits him. Mark stands up and folds his arms across himself, his slightly dingy hoody the only thing between him and the cold.

They walk out onto the pavement and scan the street for taxis. Eduardo promises they come by this way quite regularly, and Mark is drunk enough that he doesn't fancy walking anywhere else to find one, and so they settle back against the wall of the bar.

Mark doesn't quite know what to say now. 

Eduardo looks over at him. "Hey," he says. "You know, I really do have to be up early tomorrow."

Mark shrugs. "It's fine."

"No," Eduardo says, and he actually reaches out and touches Mark's elbow, getting him to turn and look up. "I run a bakery. Early starts are part of the job." He smiles. "I do some of my best work in the mornings."

"It's _fine_ ," Mark says again, embarrassed, glancing away from the earnest way Eduardo is looking at him. "I'm still not a girl. That hasn't changed."

"But you'd look so pretty with pink ribbons in your hair," Eduardo teases, tugging at one of Mark's curls, and Mark didn't realise it was possible to go this red but apparently it is. Eduardo's thumb brushes Mark's temple as he lets go of Mark's hair, and Mark turns to him, tilting his face up like a question, and he swears Eduardo starts to lean in - but then there's the sweep of headlights round the corner, and a taxi coming down the road, and Mark leaps to the edge of the curb, arm out to flag it down. He won't let himself have this unless he's sure, unless Eduardo's sure. Right now, they're drunk, or at least, Mark is - and drunk is not sure.

He opens the door to the cab and looks back at Eduardo. "You take it," he offers, surprising himself, fighting to keep his voice steady, trying not to think about Eduardo's thumb against his skin.

Eduardo steps back. "You go ahead," he says. "I don't live far, I'll be fine."

And Mark is still a deep, flushed red, and his heart is pounding harder than it should be even for the number of beers he's had, and Eduardo is looking at him with his dark, gentle eyes, and this wasn't a date, and Mark is quite drunk, and it's all too much. He jumps in the back of the taxi and gives his address, and then, unable to help it, he turns to look out the rearview window to see Eduardo standing and watching the cab pull away, getting lost in the shadows in his dark coat. Mark raises a hand like he's about to wave, and Eduardo makes this daft salute back, and then the cab rounds the next corner and Mark is left slumped in his seat with the beginnings of regret, and an odd, tight feeling in his chest.

//

Mark is less than useless in the morning. He jerks awake at, like, six, and he is so not a morning person unless he's seeing it from the perspective of having been up all night that it takes him a few bleary minutes of staring accusatorily at the blinking green numbers on his clock before they actually tell him anything. His hangover at least does him the decency of letting him stagger into his bathroom before he pukes everywhere, which is nice.

He spends half an hour propping up the tiles on his bathroom wall, unwilling to tempt fate by getting up and leaving and then goes back to bed with a pillow over his face. When he wakes up again, his clock is telling him it's ten fifteen, which is news he receives with much less animosity and also less nausea, which is even better.

He showers and drinks, like, four cups of coffee and finds some clothes in his wardrobe that have both been washed recently and also put away properly from the laundry, and heads out to work.

Since college, Mark has had this thing where, however bad his hangover pretends to be in the morning when it's like a team of small, angry dwarves have taken up residence in his skull and vented Nordic, axe-swinging rage on his gray matter, when he's fit enough to shower and force down some inhumanely strong coffee, it starts to wane. He has fond, fond memories of that first Palo Alto summer, everyone else collapsed and useless over various items of living-room furniture while he got wired-in with his headphones on, and did enough work to make everyone wide-eyed when they eventually came down and/or recovered, respectively. This is different, though. Now he has less fond and more excruciating memories of being like "hurr you like ponies" and also a memory that twinges something in his stomach and makes his throat hurt, the side of Eduardo's thumb against the thin skin at his temple, warm in the late night air.

When Mark gets into the office, he does what he normally does when he doesn't know what to do about something, which is to code hard enough that his field of vision actually narrows down to the laptop screen and he jumps when Dustin comes in, a couple of hours later.

He shoves a familiar-looking bakery box under Mark's nose, lid open. 

"Cookie?" he asks. "They're not warm anymore, but they're still good."

Mark shakes his head, not looking, and tries to refocus.

"Your loss," Dustin shrugs, and chews his way through at least two more before Mark sighs, and gives up, and looks up at him properly.

"What did we do before Eduardo?" Dustin wonders. His mouth is full. Mark can see bits of cookie rolling around inside it.

"Is this going to be important, or is this just you trying to get me to eat something?"

Dustin shrugs again. "Go about your business," he says. "I'm on a break. A cookie break. A delicious, chocolate chip, novelty-shaped cookie break."

Mark starts to get a niggling feeling of worry in the back of his mind. It's one that he associates with half-remembering a mis-pressed key near twenty minutes back but not knowing quite where, and with having to scan back over lines and lines of code to find it, and trying to hang on to what he wants to type next but without losing track of what he's looking for now. It's like that, but distinctly more Eduardo-flavoured.

"Novelty-shaped?" he echoes.

Dustin doesn't seem to be paying attention.

"Yeah, Mark, you wouldn't happen to know why the cookies are shaped like ponies today, would you?" he asks, off-hand, like he's not expecting an answer - but then he probably starts expecting one really fast when Mark freezes up.

"What?" says Mark, because: _what_?

Dustin puts the box of cookies carefully to one side and then gets very close to Mark's face. Mark would be more bothered about this if he wasn't too busy being bothered about the fact that he made a stupid crack about ponies under the influence and now Eduardo has baked _pony-shaped cookies_ and presumably basically everyone in the office has eaten them. 

"You _do_ know!" Dustin crows, gleefully triumphant. "Oh my god, Mark, tell me everything."

"No," Mark says, trying to shrug him off and get back to his laptop. "No, I don't know. Just enjoy your equine-shaped baked goods and leave me alone."

Dustin refuses to be shrugged off. "Gossip! Everything! Tell me right now, Mark Zuckerberg, I shared a suite with you, we have no secrets."

Mark thinks of Dustin's disturbing drunken habit of walking around buck-naked. "Maybe there should be more secrets," he says, still trying to elbow Dustin out of the way. "More secrets and also more clothing."

"I bet you didn't say that to Eduardo," Dustin says, and Mark makes a wordless noise of horrified protest and glances up to see Dustin's face undergo a truly remarkable expression of delight and victory.

"I _knew_ it!" he cries, and whips out his phone.

" _What the hell are you doing_?" Mark says, furious, grabbing for it, but Dustin just lifts the phone over his head and by the time Mark has stood up from his chair and snatched it out of his hands, Dustin has already pressed send.

Dustin lets him flounder apoplectically for another few seconds before he says, "Dude, chill, I just texted Chris."

Mark sinks back down into his chair. While he would much rather this conversation stopped right here, involved no other people and also was erased from both of their minds, he guesses that Dustin only texting Chris about it is about as close to that scenario as the real world will allow.

Chris arrives a couple of minutes later.

" _Mark is Eduardo's stallion, come quick_ ," he reads, looking faintly aghast and proffering his phone to Mark. "Can someone please explain this to me? And can that someone please not be Dustin?"

Mark actually chokes. Sadly, this gives Dustin the opportunity to leap in front of Chris and brandish the open box of cookies at him. He shakes the box so all the little cookie ponies slide about, and Mark squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to imagine tiny chocolate chip hooves darting around the box.

Chris makes a noise that is the spirit animal of everything going on in Mark's head right now. When Mark opens his eyes, Chris has shoved his way past Dustin and is rubbing his temples like he's staving off a migraine. He leans against Mark's desk, and asks, "Mark? Can you - say some words, please?"

Mark starts with, "It wasn't a date," which may or may not be true, but either way, it's not how he really wanted to open this whole thing.

Dustin looks so incredibly glad to be hearing this conversation that it makes Chris's pained expression look even more agonized by contrast.

Mark feels slightly affronted. "It's not like I can have done anything bad for PR in one night," he says. "We just went out for drinks, Chris. Stop looking like I've killed a puppy."

Dustin shoves his fist in his mouth.

Chris ignores this. "I didn't say you'd done anything wrong," he says, "although I am willing to place money on the fact that you are capable of doing _many_ things that are puppy-killing levels of terrible for PR in one night, but that's not the point."

Mark is busy, and his mouth still tastes like morning breath and too much coffee, and he has better things to be doing with his time than this. "What is the point?"

"You went on a date with Eduardo!" 

"Dustin! It wasn't a date. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a date. Maybe." 

Dustin looks like he's filled with a sense of unholy satisfaction. Mark swears.

"Shut up," he says, weakly, feeling like they're in college again, and Dustin says, sliding easily into being supportive, "Okay, let's work this out."

He sits down on the arm of Mark's sofa and starts listing things off on his fingers. "Did you go out together?"

"Yes."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yes, but - "

"And you had drinks?"

"Yes, but - "

"And what did you talk about?"

"Just _stuff_ , I don't know, what people normally talk about. He told me about making money by betting oil futures one summer, is that - "

"And did you pay?"

Mark hesitates.

"Did you go _stag_?"

"We - I - I got most of the drinks," Mark says, stumbling, uncomfortable. "He thinks he bought the first round but I shoved some money in his pocket when he wasn't looking - Jesus, Dustin, take that fucking look off your face."

Chris looks conflicted. "You - put some money in his pocket?"

"Yes," says Mark, defensive, not sure whether this was the right thing to do.

Chris starts to say something, but pauses. "I - I have been friends with you for too long, Mark, I can't decide whether that's really offensive or secretly charming."

Dustin clasps his hands together, and Chris rolls his eyes.

Dustin looks at him for a long minute, deliberately making Mark squirm.

"Well?" Mark demands, finally, impatient.

"Well," Dustin begins, faux thoughtful, drawing it out, but he cracks, and grins. "Seriously, Mark, that was a fucking _date_!"

Mark thinks about watching Eduardo's mouth move around the top of his beer, and about catching hold of Eduardo's wrist over the table, and about Eduardo's thumb light against his skin, and puts his head in his hands.

"Oh my god," he says. "It was a date."

Dustin punches the air so wildly he almost falls off the sofa. 

Mark is admittedly not the most in tune with his emotions, but right now he actually has no fucking idea what his feelings are doing, wobbling between cautious delight and jangling despair. "It was a date and I _didn't notice_."

Chris puts a hand on his shoulder. "If it's any consolation," he says. "The cookies are really fucking good."

"Seriously," says Dustin. "They really are. Your boyfriend's great, I approve."

"He's not my boyfriend," Mark mutters, into his hands.

Dustin continues, ignoring him, "Are you going to bring him home to meet the family? And by "home" I mean "to the office" and by "the family" I mean us. And by "meet" I mean "dispense baked goods on command"."

"Shut up," Mark groans. "Please shut up."

Someone peels his hands away from his face, and when he looks up to glare, it's Chris, pressing a cookie into his hand. Its little chocolate-chip-flecked legs mock him. There's actually a pink iced ribbon around its iced-on mane. Mark doesn't know how to feel about any of this, other than really, really wanting another cup of coffee and to be left alone forever, or for at least the foreseeable future.

Chris, who is a god among men and whom Mark should appreciate more, starts to steer Dustin towards the door. "We'll leave you with your thoughts," he says, and Dustin starts to protest but Chris pinches him or something, and he shuts up. 

Chris turns round before he closes the door. "Mark," he says, in an entirely different tone of voice that makes Mark instantly suspicious, "do you really _like_ Eduardo?"

Mark doesn't say anything, thinking about Eduardo's wide, warm smile, and apparently this shows on his face, because Chris smiles back at him, softly.

"I was only really mad about the whole _stallion imagery_ thing," he says, grinning, and then, "Seriously, I'm happy for you! Just don't scare him off or we'll all die of sugar withdrawal."

Mark only manages to resist the urge to put his head on his keyboard because he doesn't want to have to delete a whole bunch of nonsense from the code he's been working on all day. 

//

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: if you're not going to eat that cookie can i have it???

seriously mark it's like you're not human, those things are fucking delicious

just try a leg

or a hoof

or just GIVE IT TO MEEEEE I CAN TASTE IT FROM HERE MARK IT IS THE LAST ONE PLEASE DON'T LET IT GO TO WASTE IT WILL MISS ITS FRIENDS ALL IT WANTS IS TO BE EATEN AND FROLIC IN FIELDS OF STOMACH ACID LIKE ALL THE OTHER PONIES.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: go away

Do you ever do any actual work here? 

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: ITS A CRUEL CRUEL SUMMER NOW YOU'VE EATEN MY PONY COOKIE

I am an invaluable part of this team, Mark Zuckerberg

now hand over that cookie

unless you've eaten it, I mean. You can keep it then.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: at least get your seasons right

It's fall

 

//

Eduardo is in the kitchen at the back when Mark walks in. The curtain is open and Mark can see straight through to Eduardo drying dishes by the sink, his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Mark doesn't know what he's supposed to open with in situations like this. It's not like Mark's never hooked up with a guy before - college, drinking, horny and eighteen, horny and _nineteen_ , just fucking _horny_ \- but he's definitely never _dated_ one before.

Okay, yeah, and another thing: is this _dating_ or was that just a date? 

Mark cannot think the word _date_ anymore.

He hesitates for long enough that Eduardo looks up and catches sight of him, and immediately breaks into a smile. There is no-one who looks as consistently happy to see Mark as Eduardo does. It makes Mark fidget, unaccustomed to it.

Eduardo comes through into the shop, slinging the dishcloth over his shoulder, and it reminds Mark so strongly of the first time he saw him that for a moment he actually can't speak, which is ridiculous. 

"Hello," Eduardo says, apparently unaware of Mark's sudden mutism, coming round to lean against Mark's side of the counter, and Mark abruptly has no idea what he normally does with his hands. 

Eduardo has these big eyes and broad smile and long, long limbs, and Mark thinks, if it was a date, Eduardo might sort of like him too. Mark sort of really, really hopes he's right about that, so much so that he can't think about it too much, like skirting around server options without financial backing, not letting himself want something he isn't sure he can have.

"Why did you make ponies?" he says, rapid-fire, just so he can fucking say _something_ , and Eduardo looks instantly amused.

"Sorry?"

"Your cookies." Mark waves a hand at the plates in the display. "You made pony cookies. Or they could be horses, I don't know, I'm not an expert in the relative sizes of equine-shaped consumables, so - " He takes a breath, because Eduardo is still looking at him like he's trying not to laugh, and it's riling Mark up more than it should.

"Go on," Eduardo prompts, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"Most people don't mock the drunken behaviour of their friends by sending them cookies," Mark says, and folds his arms. 

"I didn't send you cookies," Eduardo points out, after a beat. "Your assistant came to get the office something, and she picked them. What can I say, I make a mean pony cookie."

"They had pink iced ribbons in their little iced manes," Mark says. "Those ponies had never been mean in their lives."

Eduardo laughs properly. Mark stares at his mouth.

"Were we on a date?" he blurts, needing to know right then how far he can let himself take that train of thought. "Are we dating now?"

"Did you think it was a date?" Eduardo asks, evenly, folding his arms exactly like Mark has done.

"I don't," says Mark, "I just," and he doesn't normally trip over his own tongue like this, and it's really fucking frustrating. He sighs, hard, and just goes for honesty. "I hope it was."

Eduardo's face lights up immediately, and Mark's heart is pounding, and he deflects, because he can't cope with anything right now.

"Why?" he demands, and Eduardo looks slightly confused.

"Why what?"

"The ponies," Mark says, and this whole conversation is ridiculous but Mark can't get it back under control. "Why did you make them?"

There's a real grin tugging at Eduardo's mouth, full-fledged but hiding, and his eyes are really, really dark. "I thought it would be funny," he says.

Mark is so fucking attracted to him it feels like he is actually losing brain cells.

He can't come up with anything better fast enough, so: "That wasn't very nice." He winces as he hears himself hear it, but _whatever_ , it's not like Mark has been flush with dignity today. He tries not to mind.

Eduardo shrugs. "I wasn't mocking you," he says, like he knows Mark needs to hear it, and he crooks one finger to get Mark to lean forward. Mark knows he's gone red, knows Eduardo makes him blush more than anyone he's ever met, but he does it anyway. 

Eduardo's mouth brushes the curve of Mark's ear; Mark thinks determinedly about printer ink and whiteboards and math, willing his heart rate down. Eduardo says, his voice practically obscene, "I'm not always very nice," and holy _shit_ , what is Mark supposed to do with that other than try not to just expire on the spot.

Eduardo pulls away, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. Mark's stomach feels like there's a whole _herd_ of ponies trampling over everything in there.

"Yeah?" Mark says, fighting to keep his voice steady, standing his ground. "Well, neither am I."

They stare at each other for a minute, and it's so charged it's like someone has ripped all the air out of the room just to make Mark's pulse skyrocket, but then a car horn sounds outside, and they both jump, and the air comes rushing back in. They both laugh, sort of shakily, and Eduardo rubs a hand over his face.

"Jesus," he says. 

"Jesus fucking _Christ_ ," says Mark, because he always tries to go one better, and Eduardo flashes him a grin through his fingers like he knows.

Mark says, pretty sure now, "So, we're dating, right?" and Eduardo says, "We'd damn well better be."

Mark hasn't felt this good since he stepped foot in the first official Facebook offices.

"I think," he says, "I think we should do it again soon. We should have another date now we both _know_ it's a date. Like, really soon."

Eduardo laughs again, and Mark laughs too, but his eyes go straight to how Eduardo's shirt pulls away from where it's tucked loosely into his pants as Eduardo moves, showing a cent-sized flash of tan skin. He wants to reach out and press his fingers to Eduardo's hips, work his way up under the sides of his shirt and make him shiver. He wants to code, because he always wants to code, but he wants Eduardo too.

"All right," Eduardo says, and he's looking at Mark so fondly that Mark almost wants to look over his shoulder, check it's not misdirected. "Come over tonight."

"Tonight?" says Mark, because he can't help it. "Someone's keen."

Eduardo goes red this time, but says, undeterred, "I'll cook."

"Nothing animal-shaped, right?" Mark asks. 

"Not a pony in sight."

Mark looks at his watch. There's really not a lot to be done tonight - the latest game went up on Thursday and nothing's blown up on them so far, and it's really just maintenance and tweaking for a couple of days - and Mark abruptly tells himself to stop considering these things when he looks up and finds Eduardo smiling at him like he can't help it, the corners of his mouth curving up of their own accord.

"All right," Mark says. He folds his arms, suddenly self-conscious again, out on a limb. "Where do you live?"

Eduardo points directly above his head.

"What," Mark says, "are you telling me you're Jesus? Because baking is not exactly the same as feeding the masses with a couple of fish, you know."

Eduardo bats at him with the dishtowel. "No, you idiot. I live upstairs, there's an apartment that comes with the store."

Mark lifts an eyebrow. "Very Gilmore Girls."

"Shut up, Lorelai."

There's this stupid sort of moment where they're just grinning at each other, and Mark has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to do next but he's still unreasonably annoyed when his phone goes off in his pocket.

It's Dustin.

_dude if you're not banging him on the counter rn could you get more cookies? but not if you're playing the biscuit game, there are limits to my cravings_

Mark makes a strangled noise, and slams his phone shut.

"What's up?" says Eduardo, which doesn't help at all.

"Nothing," says Mark, "work stuff." He doesn't need to be the colour of Mars for this to be an obvious lie: anyone who's been around him for more than about thirty seconds in his life would probably balk at hearing him use the words "work" and "nothing" in the same sentence without, like, having a stroke or something. Eduardo seems to be having a similar reaction, only with his eyebrow. It's really fucking impressive.

"See," says Eduardo, "this is why I don't work in an office." He grins. "Too much _stuff_."

"I run the office, actually," says Mark.

"I run a bakery," says Eduardo. "So there." He is still smiling. How is it even possible for one person to smile this much? It's like there's a smile tree somewhere and Eduardo has stolen all the branches. Eduardo is also making him stupid, and Mark doesn't know how to feel about that. 

Mark's feelings have gone back and forth so many times in so few minutes he feels like he's got emotional whiplash.

His head is swimming. He defaults. "I have to get back."

Eduardo gives him this big-eyed, understanding look, like he knows exactly what's going on in Mark's head, which means that it must be deliberate when he pitches his voice low and says, "See you tonight, then."

Mark's mouth is dry, anticipatory, and he says, "Yeah," and, oh _god_ , he is in so freaking far over his head.

//

Mark's phone bleeps when he's talking to Dustin, which is unfortunate, because the text says, _seven okay?_ and Mark grins sort of helplessly down at it and Dustin takes this moment of weakness as an opportunity to snatch the phone out of Mark's hand and flail at it.

"What's happening at seven?" he asks, waving Mark's phone at him. "Oh my god, Mark, are you _leaving the office at seven_?" His eyes are so wide it is ridiculous.

Mark grabs for his phone, but Dustin wrestles it back.

Mark says, "I could fire you, you know."

"I know," says Dustin, cheerfully. "But you won't. You'd miss my verve and charm."

"No-one would miss those things, Dustin."

"You'd miss your _phone_ ," Dustin rejoins, holding it away from Mark, "because you're not getting it back until you give me some details! And if you fire me I'll drop it in the water cooler, so. Spill."

" _Spill_?" says Mark. "What are you, fourteen?"

"You're the one going all gooey over a two word text," Dustin points out, not inaccurately.

Mark makes another grab for his phone, but Dustin darts out of reach.

"Mark," he says. "Come on. We both know how this is going to end."

"With you on the unemployment line," Mark grumbles, but relents, because mostly it really is just easier to give Dustin what he wants. "I'm not leaving at seven," he says. "There's too much - it's too early, okay."

"Is it not romantic enough?" Dustin asks, and Mark can practically see him drawing hearts in his mind.

"Eight," Mark says, finally wresting his phone back as Dustin grins, pleased, at him. "I'll leave at eight." He starts heading back to his office, thumbing out a text.

_Eight's better._

Eduardo sends back _eight's great :)_ which is stupid and rhymes and there's a stupid smiley face, and Mark can't stop smiling back at it.

"Wear protection!" Dustin yells.


	2. Chapter 2

ii.

 

Mark has no idea how this normally happens, because, like, he's spent the whole day thinking about Eduardo's mouth and the curve of Eduardo's smile against Mark's ear and, well, just Eduardo in general, in between bursts of code, and now he's here and, just - okay, so, Mark refuses to believe that the rest of the world spend dates just sort of awkwardly edging around the fact that they want to get in each other's pants, because there is a limit to his suspension of disbelief, and that limit is standing opposite Eduardo in his little apartment kitchen and watching him turn onions golden in a pan on his stove when Mark couldn't really care a whole lot less about the fucking pasta sauce.

"Wardo," he says, and Eduardo turns to look at him over his shoulder, and smiles in a way that's entirely unwarranted by the _two syllables_ Mark just said.

Mark can't quite stop just _looking_ at him, all five o'clock shadow and messy, end of the day hair, and then - because he is allowed, because this is definitely a date, and because Eduardo likes him and smiles at him and fucking _looks like that_ \- Mark steps forward and kisses him. It's not a particularly elegant kiss, and it's lacking all sorts of finesse, Mark is sure, but that is not important right now. What is important is that Mark is _kissing Eduardo_ , and Eduardo is making this ridiculous wanting sound into Mark's mouth and bringing his hands up to clutch at Mark's hips straight away, and he's opening his mouth under Mark's, for Mark, and pulling Mark in flush against him without even a flicker of hesitation.

Mark has heard all the jokes about how he is a robot, okay, and he doesn't really pay them much attention, but right now it legitimately feels like something in his brain is short-circuiting, like there's an actual fuse in there marked, like, Stuff You Can Cope With, and it has been dramatically overloaded. This is probably the reason that even though Mark is pushing Eduardo back against the counter and feeling Eduardo's breath pant out pleased against his mouth, there's this little voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Chris being all _think about what you're doing, Mark_ and _think about other people's reactions, Mark_ , which, great, Mark is probably the only person in the world who gets cockblocked by his friends when they aren't even there.

As much as he's trying to ignore it, because he really doesn't want to be thinking about Chris right now, he can't stop it, this chiding little voice going on about _acknowledging other people's feelings_. Mark doesn't want this to go any further if there's even the slightest possibility Eduardo might not, and if he doesn't stop right fucking now then he's pretty sure it might be physically impossible for him to take his hands off Eduardo's ass, and so he pulls away and actually slightly staggers when he takes a step or two back, which is stupid, but not entirely inexplicable. Eduardo looks kind of dazed, his eyes wide and dark, his mouth kiss-swollen. Mark shoves his hands hard in his pockets, trying to ignore the pull of reoriented gravity suddenly pooling in his stomach, tugging him back towards Eduardo, and tears his gaze away before he does something entirely counterproductive.

Mark has never felt so in favour of being counterproductive in his entire life.

"So," he says, and his voice comes out all chipped and hoarse, and he's never heard himself sound like that before, not even coming off thirty-six straight hours at the computer, shaking and exhausted. Right now, he feels more wrecked than coding has ever made him. It's pretty fucking great. "Um," he says, trying to clear his throat. "We can take this slow, if you want."

Eduardo gives him this look that Mark completely does not have the ability to interpret properly at this point, sort of half want, half uncertainty, and runs his hand through his hair. "Do _you_ want to take it slow?" 

Eduardo sounds just as ridiculous as Mark does, only - because life is massively unfair - when he does it, he also sounds really fucking hot. Whatever. Mark's maybe seconds away from getting his tongue back in Eduardo's mouth, so as far as he's concerned, what's fair and what's not can basically both go fuck themselves.

It's at this point that he realises he hasn't answered Eduardo yet. Eduardo has stopped looking quite so blown apart and started looking a little bit like he's about to start backtracking spectacularly. There is not even a single part of Mark that would be okay with that.

"What?" he says, fast, still in his new, Eduardo-induced voice. "Obviously not, Wardo, have you gone insane?"

"Not as far as I know," says Eduardo, and there, there's a laugh waiting in his voice, like he's keeping it back till he's absolutely sure.

And, okay, now Mark knows Eduardo wants this too, he's not going to - he's just - _why the fuck are they still talking_?

"Great," says Mark. "I can work with possible insanity," and he reaches out to pull Eduardo in by the apron strings at his waist. Eduardo clutches on to the sides of Mark's hoodie, gathering the fabric up in his fists and getting his hands on Mark's skin, and Mark actually moans just from that, from Eduardo's palms curved against his bare waist.

"Fuck," says Eduardo, and Mark can feel his ridiculous grin against his mouth, and he pulls back enough to look Mark in the eye. His smile is actually, like, _blinding_. Mark will forever blame the fact that there is currently zero blood left in his head for the fact that he is thinking things like that. Eduardo brings a hand up to cup the side of Mark's face, and Mark leans into it automatically, like leaning against Eduardo's hand on his shoulder when he was tired, like that's where he's meant to be.

This is making him stupid. Eduardo is making him stupid. Mark - really doesn't care, at this point.

"What," he says, getting his own hands on Eduardo's shirt, tugging the buttons undone. "Why're you stopping?"

"Nothing," says Eduardo, "I'm not, just - " He shakes his head a little, biting his lip, still smiling. 

" _Fuck_ ," says Mark, watching him do it.

Eduardo says, "Okay," all fake-lecherous despite the cheerful curve of his mouth, and Mark rolls his eyes even as Eduardo pulls him down to the kitchen floor, says, "That was such an easy line, Wardo, you are so - " but then Eduardo is pressing down against him, a thigh firm between Mark's parted legs, and Mark has to stop talking and take a fast, surprised breath, letting his head tip back. Eduardo takes advantage immediately, getting his mouth hot and open on Mark's neck in a way that's going to be obvious later, and Mark is so turned on it feels like his brain is actually just disintegrating, which is new and unusual, but definitely _good_.

He is also having some difficulty reconciling the Eduardo who blushed when he offered Mark congratulations on the update with the Eduardo who is currently sucking hickeys in a line up Mark's throat, but then he remembers the way Eduardo had said _I'm not always very nice_ , almost a promise, and he groans, and arches up, fumbling for the waistband of Eduardo's unnecessarily formal pants.

"Why do you wear these things?" he pants, working the button at the top of Eduardo's fly undone. "You're a _baker_."

Eduardo sounds gratifyingly short of breath when he answers. "I still have to wear clothes," he says. "Otherwise I think I'd get shut down."

The button is refusing to yield. Mark has maybe never hated an inanimate object quite so much in his life. "I wouldn't complain," he says, and goes hot, in case this is too much, even though he's actively trying to get his hand in Eduardo's pants. He doesn't know what he's allowed to say. Not that this has stopped him before, but. This is different, a bit.

But Eduardo huffs this little laugh into the dips of Mark's collarbones so it must be okay, and he slides a hand up underneath Mark's hoodie, under his t-shirt, and Mark finally defeats the stupid button on Eduardo's trousers, and Eduardo swears on a long breath out when Mark curls his hand around him. The angle's awkward as all hell, and Mark is so hard that he's restless with it, shifting against the linoleum floor, but Eduardo moves over slightly so that when he flexes his thigh Mark makes this helpless, involuntary little noise, his toes curling up, and that's good, that's really, really good.

Mark says, in this choked, turned-on voice, "I mean, you're practically wearing a suit," and Eduardo says, "I know," and moves again, and Mark's hips buck up of their own accord and he says, high-pitched, "It seems a bit impractical," twisting his wrist, trying to keep some sort of rhythm, and Eduardo doesn't say anything to that, because he's groaning against Mark's skin, pressing his mouth against Mark's, sloppily, like he's too far gone for precision.

Mark thinks about Eduardo licking frosting off his fingers, and then thinks about how Eduardo is now licking into his mouth instead. Jesus.

"Fuck," he hisses, when Eduardo breaks off to take an unsteady breath in, because this is about to be incredibly embarrassing, because Eduardo hasn't even undone his jeans yet, Jesus fucking Christ, and Eduardo gets a hand down between them and palms Mark straight through the denim. " _Fuck_ ," Mark manages, "Wardo - you - you have to - " and he speeds his hand up until Eduardo tenses all over, and Mark can't, he really fucking can't, so he just pulls himself up to get his mouth back on Eduardo's, and when Eduardo comes, he moans into Mark's mouth, and fuck, okay, that's fucking it.

Eduardo has basically his full weight against Mark now, breathing heavily into the side of Mark's neck, and Mark is still shuddering, and what the hell even was that. They're both still fully clothed. Mark is sticky under his jeans, in his boxers, and his hand is wet with Eduardo's come, and neither of them has so much as taken off a shirt. Eduardo's shirt isn't even fully unbuttoned. 

"This counts as a second date, right?" Mark says, when he's relatively sure his voice will work. "Because I don't want to give the wrong impression."

Eduardo snorts with laughter. "I hope so," he says, his mouth still pressed against Mark's throat. "I don't want to impugn your virtue or anything."

"I resent that," Mark says, as dryly as he can manage when his skin is still prickling with the comedown. "What about your virtue? Why am I the girl? You work in a _bakery_."

"Yeah," says Eduardo, "but I'm also on top of you."

"I could take you," says Mark, who definitely couldn't, and then, "Plus that doesn't mean anything to the modern woman. They are sexually liberated these days, you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah," says Mark, light-headed, happy, "they've achieved sexual emancipation."

Eduardo bursts into laugher, open-mouthed and delighted against the pulse in Mark's throat. It makes Mark grin.

"I cannot believe the things you say," Eduardo tells the side of Mark's neck.

"Of course," says Mark, instantly. "I forget you're just a baker."

Eduardo is still laughing, warm and fond like when Mark would say something appalling after a customer had left, right back when they'd first met and Mark hadn't understood how Eduardo could laugh like they'd known each other for years but had still liked to hear it, and now Mark can feel him shaking with it all along his body. He brings a hand up, the clean one, and, tentative, puts it on the small of Eduardo's back. He feels Eduardo's mouth curve into a smile again, warm against his skin, and he smiles too, flushing up at the ceiling. 

Lying there and coming back to himself slightly more, his head clearing, Mark is suddenly and unpleasantly accosted by the smell of extremely burnt onions and an extremely ruined pan, neither of which is an unfamiliar olfactory experience due to the fact that, again, he's _lived with Dustin_.

"Um," says Eduardo, rolling ungracefully off Mark and onto to his side, propping his head up on his arm in a way that should just look awkward and gangly but is instead irritatingly endearing - and how is it that Mark can just have wanted to get on his knees for Eduardo and now he's using adjectives like _endearing_ to describe his general being? Eduardo grins, glancing down, a quick flutter of eyelashes against cheekbone, and Mark flushes hotter, instantly. Eduardo does confusing things to Mark's feelings by virtue of being too many things at once. 

"I'm sorry to say it," Eduardo continues, not sounding even remotely sorry, "but I think dinner's off the table."

"It was never _on_ the table," Mark says, facetiously. "It never made it out of the pan."

Eduardo laughs, and lies back down, and they both sort of lie there and look at the ceiling for a minute. It's sort of nice. It's just as easy to be with Eduardo now as before the sex, which Mark thinks is probably something. Mark doesn't know what Eduardo is thinking right now, but he is thinking about Eduardo smiling at him over the counter the second time they met, Mark's head still swimming with leftover code-based adrenaline, the colour rising in Eduardo's cheeks when he asked Mark out for a drink, Eduardo watching Mark's taxi pull away from the bar, and even apart from all the orgasm endorphins rocketing around in Mark's body, he's just - he's - he's just so _happy_ that it's practically sickening. 

He is also just really _ridiculous_ , apparently, and he has to turn slightly away from Eduardo, just for a second, just to tamp everything down. He is so out of his depth.

"I think there's some cheesecake that needs eating," Eduardo says, either oblivious to or tactfully not commenting on Mark's sudden, unexpected, stupid feeling-eruption, but Eduardo seems like if he were a superhero, his nickname would be Captain Empathy, so Mark's betting it's the latter. "We could have that instead of pasta."

"What kind?" Mark asks, feigning petulance, and Eduardo rubs his knuckles along Mark's spine, intimate, affectionate. Mark shivers, and Eduardo must notice, but he doesn't say anything about that either.

"Lemon and lime," he says. "It's citrus-y."

"No, really?" Mark says. "With lemon and lime? I wouldn't have guessed."

"You don't have to have any," says Eduardo. "I on the other hand don't joke about cheesecake, and therefore can have as much as I want."

"I don't want my freedom of speech restricted by cheesecake," Mark says. "What kind of dictatorial bakery are you running?"

"A citrus-friendly one," Eduardo says, grinning again, and then he's getting to his feet and padding into the bathroom. Mark stays there, on his back, turning his head to watch Eduardo go. 

Eduardo comes back after a minute and hands him a towel, and Mark sits up and turns away to wipe himself down, wipe his hand clean. 

"You can use the shower, if you'd like," Eduardo says, and he's eying Mark like he might want to get in there with him, and Mark fervently hopes this will happen, but then Eduardo says, "I'll go get the cheesecake," and, okay, evidently the universe only wants Mark to have good things in small doses. _Fuck you, universe_ , Mark thinks, irrationally, and gets up to kiss Eduardo again, because he can now, and he doesn't have to make himself stop wanting it.

Eventually, Eduardo pokes him in the direction of the shower, and Mark stands under the water and tries very hard not to think about Eduardo standing in the same place naked every morning, because he has to go back out in a minute and converse like a real human and not just smear cheesecake all over Eduardo's stomach and lick it messily off. There is a very real possibility that sex might have melted Mark's brain. As long as it solidifies by the time he goes back to work in the morning, Mark really doesn't mind too much.

When he steps out of the bathroom with damp hair and pink skin, Eduardo is sitting at the table, and they eat cheesecake for dinner like children, and Eduardo grins and leans across the table to kiss away crumbs that get left on Mark's upper lip, because he is apparently a person that does that, and Mark is now _dating him_ , and oh god, he cannot tell Dustin _anything_.

//

"Tell me everything!" Dustin demands, nanoseconds after he gets into work the next day and foolishly tries to bypass Dustin's desk. "Every single thing, Mark Zuckerberg, don't you dare hold out on me.

"If I say no," Mark says, prevaricating futilely, "what are the chances that you'll actually go away?"

"Slim to none," says Dustin. 

"Great," says Mark. "Good to know."

"Okay," says Dustin, insinuating himself between Mark and his laptop, so he has no means of ignoring him. "Start with when you left here last night. And don't think I didn't see you checking your watch every five minutes till you left. Because I did. Because you are not subtle and also I have eyes everywhere."

"Everywhere?" says Mark, needlessly.

Dustin leans in. " _Everywhere_."

Well, that's alarming. Luckily Mark happens to know that Dustin is basically the least observant person on the planet - unless, of course, you don't want him to notice something, and then he is like a fucking _hawk_.

"Right," says Dustin, clapping his hands together, eyes narrowing, avian. "So, okay, you went to Eduardo's - _oh my god_."

"What?" asks Mark, alarmed. Dustin has clapped his hands over his mouth in apparent delight. Mark eyes him warily. " _What_?"

"I said Eduardo's name," says Dustin, in a little squeak of a voice, "and your face went all soft."

"No, it didn't," says Mark, going red.

"And now you're _blushing_!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Oh my god, Mark, you are so _precious_."

"I am not precious!" says Mark, horrified. "Please go away now."

"Only if you tell me about last night," Dustin says, folding his arms. Mark weighs up the chances of Dustin leaving without any information against the likelihood of the world just coming to an end in the next five minutes, and the apocalypse is the clear victor. Mark sighs.

"We had cheesecake," he says, grudgingly.

" _Cheesecake_?" Dustin says, in a worrying leer/eyebrow combination and Mark groans, and elbows him out of the way.

"I'm working now," he says. "Begone."

"Going," Dustin says, heading for the door. "I'll leave you and your dairy-based dessert fantasies in peace."

"Begone _faster_."

Dustin laughs, and Mark stares at the loading screen of his computer like if he wills it hard enough, he can just disappear into it, and live in streams of code instead of this flesh and blood reality where Dustin is real and Mark has a bruise on his hip from Eduardo's uncomfortable kitchen floor.

Except - except, Mark keeps touching his fingers to it, just enough that it hurts, and thinking about Eduardo pressing him down between cold kitchen tile and Eduardo's warm mouth, and thinks maybe there's something to be said for a non-virtual reality after all.

//

Mark goes back to Eduardo's after work, not sure whether he should or not, because he doesn't know the _rules of dating_ or whatever but he does want to see Eduardo again, and he's used to doing what he wants. When he pushes open the door, just as Eduardo is packing away the cakes from the display, Eduardo looks up to see him walking in and beams, and something warm spreads out in Mark's chest.

"Hello," he says, suddenly stupid with it, and Eduardo smiles wider, eyes crinkling up, and says, "Hi."

Thankfully for Mark's remaining sense of masculinity, this insipid beginning leads to Eduardo pulling him upstairs by the wrist and pushing him back onto his bed, and then kneeling between Mark's thighs and blowing him while Mark tips his head back into the pillows and tries to keep his eyes open, to watch.

Eventually, Mark's so close he can't stop his hips from coming up off the bed of their own accord, helpless. His chest is tight, and he curls his fingers in Eduardo's duvet and just looks down at Eduardo looking up at him from between his legs, and _holy fucking shit_.

Eduardo says, like they're having a perfectly ordinary conversation and his pupils aren't blown wide with want, "Next time, you can fuck me, if you'd like," all magnificently fake innocence, and Mark says, ruined, "If I'd _like_ \- fuck - Wardo - _fuck_ \- " and he's coming before Eduardo even closes his mouth back around him, gasping and overwhelmed, and he throws his arm over his eyes, and tries not to feel like an idiot.

Eduardo kisses him between hip and thigh, gentle, and Mark squeezes his eyes more tightly closed and groans, because he can't cope with any of this, with Eduardo touching him, with Eduardo smiling at him, with _Eduardo_ , and why was everything so much easier when it was just him, his laptop and a revolutionary idea?

Mark feels Eduardo smile against the top of his thigh, and then Eduardo says, sort of pleased, definitely rhetorically, "That was okay, then?"

Mark groans again, and reaches down to drag Eduardo up to kiss him, even though Eduardo is still wiping his mouth with his hand, and then he flips them over so that Eduardo makes a satisfied, anticipatory sound, and then he shows him just how fucking okay it was.

//

Mark doesn't know what he was expecting, but aside from the fact that he now gets to have regular sex, which is a bonus in anyone's book, not a lot changes. He's still at Eduardo's every morning, only sometimes he stays over the night before, and comes down the stairs from the apartment to the bakery mid-morning to find Eduardo serving customers, and Mark's coffee waiting for him in a takeaway cup on the end of the counter. Eduardo wakes up first if they're both asleep, because he gets up at a time that Mark would consider an early bedtime just so he can offer freshly baked things every day. Mark would be a terrible baker, mostly because kitchen appliances just break preemptively when they see him coming so they're not subjected to his increasingly angry attempts to make them work, but also because if he had to get up at the time Eduardo does every day, he would eventually just be shut down or arrested for standing in the middle of his shop wild-eyed and holding a gun after just not sleeping for weeks, and then blood would be shed and people would die and cookies would crumble, and all in all, it's really for the best that Mark goes to bed late and Eduardo's the one that gets up early. 

Sometimes, though, if Mark's stayed over and he's still awake when Eduardo stumbles bleary-eyed from bed to shower and then somehow emerges looking cheerful and fresh and heads down to the bakery kitchen, Mark puts his laptop aside and rubs his eyes and follows him. Eduardo makes him coffee and doesn't talk to him, because it's early and Mark needs caffeine before any attempts at conversation can be made, and rolls his shirt sleeves up to his elbows and lets Mark lean against the big table in the middle of the room and watch as he starts up the oven, rummages for bowls and baking trays. He still hums while he works, but now Mark gets to watch him go from counter to counter, cupboard to mixing bowl, and gets to raise a sleepy eyebrow when Eduardo starts mixing things together in time to a tune in his head. At some point, Mark makes the mistake of mentioning that he ends up singing whatever nonsense Eduardo has filled his head with that morning, and Eduardo raises an eyebrow like _oh really?_ and then apparently begins a campaign to embarrass Mark as much as possible at work.

One day, Mark finds himself singing the entire Rocky Horror show to his laptop in the middle of tweaking the inevitable refinements to the last profile update. It's not his finest moment.

Another day, Eduardo is making chocolate frosting in vast, terrifying quantities, to smooth over the top of what Mark can only describe as Brownies of Instant Diabetes, and he sings Sympathy for the Devil at the top of his lungs, wiggling energetically around the kitchen, using the wooden spoon as a microphone. Mark cringes against the door and makes vague, morning complaints, but Eduardo is having none of it, and grabs him by the wrist and twirls him around the kitchen despite Mark's vehement, dance-hating protestations until they're both pink-cheeked and dizzy and laughing. This is Mark's life now: he dances in kitchens. He hums the song subconsciously that afternoon as he walks past Dustin, and Dustin elbows Chris, perched precariously on the desk, so hard that he almost falls off. They both gape after him. Mark gives them the finger.

Other times, Eduardo tells him what he's making, a continuous commentary that Mark can just let wash over him as the sun rises in the windows over the sink. Eduardo tells him about the first time he made cupcakes, wearing his mother's apron, pushing up his sleeves and folding flour into the bowl. Mark has never baked anything in his life, but Eduardo talks about it like Mark remembers the first program he built, dizzy and awed, thinking _I made that_ , tense with possibility, the first glimpse of adulthood, and Mark leans back against the white-washed kitchen walls, and drinks his coffee, and listens. 

And then as well as all that, there's the incredible amounts of sex.

//

Okay, but seriously, about the sex - Mark doesn't know what he was expecting there either, apart from obviously deeply looking forward to being able to touch Eduardo as much as he'd been wanting to since Mark had said _I don't want to be an exception_ and Eduardo had not even missed a beat in getting it, in saying _sure you do_. Generally speaking, Mark's - not competitive, not exactly, but he does have this pulse-deep need to be the best at whatever he does - because he can _be_ , and because what's the point of doing something if you don't do it better than anyone else? If someone else can do something better, why even bother? Go do something you can beat them at instead. The reason this is important is because the sex turns out not only to be, like, the best thing in Mark's life after being the CEO of his own mega-company in his mid-twenties, but also to be this sort of battle of wills, a turn-taking, one-upmanship that involves Eduardo being irritatingly but understandably smug about his ability to reduce Mark to a sweating needing wreck of a person and a series of completely undignified noises, and then Mark being beyond determined to retaliate. Sometimes it's the other way round, and Eduardo is the one bearing Mark down as Mark grins, self-satisfied, up at him, but they're both really stubborn, and the end result is basically orgasms all round, so Mark doesn't really mind who comes first.

The whole thing is essentially the hottest thing ever. Mark is aware that he's started walking around with this apparently vaguely alarming omnipresent hint of a shit-eating grin on his face, because the interns look worried and Dustin keeps giving him the thumbs-up every time he sees him, but he doesn't really mind about that either. Seriously, there's _so much sex_. It's like they're trying to make up for the couple of months they spent gazing at each other over the pastries (Dustin's description of August through September, and not one that Mark advocates or lets him get away with unscathed), and sometimes when Mark looks up from his keyboard to reach for a Red Bull, he sees his own fingers curl around the can and thinks about them pressing inside of Eduardo, and Eduardo telling him breathlessly to _just fucking get on with it, you fucking teasing bastard_ while Mark smirks and deliberately slows down, and it's _amazing_.

And, okay, Mark thinks he's pretty hard to surprise, but Eduardo is really good at that too. Like, this one time, Mark is coding in the corner of the bakery just after the lunch rush, and Eduardo is cutting a chocolate cake into generous portions at the counter, and he cuts the last sliver into smaller pieces, and sets them out on the display case as tasters.

Mark looks up.

Mark has actually been looking up surreptitiously for the last ten minutes, because Eduardo has been making these little noises in concentration and it is fucking with Mark's, but whatever. The point is: he catches Eduardo's eye.

"Hi," says Eduardo, grinning. "Surfaced, have you?"

"Just because I have superior concentration doesn't mean you need to be jealous," says Mark. "I'm sure you're good at other things."

"Yeah?" says Eduardo, and Mark tries not to shiver visibly, because Eduardo can be pleased with himself enough without Mark giving him extra ammunition.

Instead, he shrugs. "I suppose there's probably something."

Eduardo runs his finger around the chocolate frosting left in the cake pan, and sucks on the tip deliberately, eying Mark, wicked. Mark has gone wickedly red.

"Yeah?" says Eduardo again, his mouth curving like he's trying not to laugh, which isn't helping matters at all. "Like what?"

Mark changes topics completely, because Eduardo cannot win _all the time_ , it is just unfair. Mark is not a person who loses well. "Isn't that a bit cliché?" he asks, purposefully obnoxious, pointing to the cake in the display, strawberries pushed into the thick frosting. "I mean, strawberries and chocolate cake? Hardly original, Wardo."

Eduardo has raised one amused eyebrow, like he knows exactly what Mark is doing and has no intention of letting him get away with it. Mark's heart is pounding relentlessly hard.

"Are you casting aspersions on my creativity?"

Mark forces himself to look away from Eduardo's mouth. "I would be if I'd seen any evidence of it."

"I will not stand for this blasphemy," Eduardo says, grinning. He crooks a finger at Mark, an actual come-here-I-am-the-child-catcher finger crook, except with less terror and perversion. "Come here."

Mark's finished his coffee and it's the middle of the day and he really should be getting back to the office, not least because he doesn't doubt that Dustin might actually be keeping a log of how long he's gone when and/or take bets on whether he'll come back with a hickey, because apparently he has that little to do, but instead of making his excuses or saying he'll come by later just to see what Eduardo would do, he lets Eduardo smile his big, warm smile at him and lets himself feel the heat that spreads over his face, and lets himself get up and go over to the counter.

Eduardo grabs his wrist and tugs him round the counter to the other side, _Eduardo's_ side, and backs him up against it. 

Mark looks over his shoulder at the open door; Eduardo takes his chin in his hand and gently turns him back. 

"Try this," he instructs, firmly, holding a strawberry point-up to Mark's lips, and this is the most ridiculous, most movie-moment thing that has ever happened in Mark's life. He feels like he should be someone else for this, someone taller with better hair and a catchphrase, but Eduardo is still smiling at him and Mark can smell cupcakes baking in the kitchen, and Eduardo has a leg between Mark's legs, and Mark just opens his mouth and lets Eduardo feed him a damn strawberry. Eduardo can win this one, he supposes. It can't hurt.

"Good," Eduardo actually says, when Mark takes a bite, and Mark goes even redder than the strawberry stain on the tips of Eduardo's fingers. "Don't swallow it," Eduardo tells him, and Mark shudders, hard in his jeans. Eduardo keeps smiling, and it is doing stupid things to Mark's insides, and then he takes one of the sample pieces of chocolate cake from the plate on the counter and holds that to Mark's mouth, brushing it against his lips. When Mark opens his mouth and takes it from him, he brushes his tongue over Eduardo's fingertips just to watch his pupils dilate.

"Good?" Eduardo says, again, only it's a question this time, and Mark closes his eyes to genuinely consider it. It's strawberry and chocolate, and the whole world and every lame guy in it knows that's a good combination if you're out to get into someone's pants, but it's not just that. It's sweet fruit and rich, dark cocoa, it's berry and cake, it's the smooth glass counter at Mark's back and Eduardo's strong thigh between his legs, it's the sun falling on Mark's shoulders and Eduardo moving in to kiss him, and yeah, it's more than good, it's so good, it's fucking great.

Mark swallows, and nods. "Yeah," he says, and his voice comes out all shaken and rough but he can't do anything to make it sound different. "Good."

"Good," says Eduardo, looking pleased, and then he drops to his knees and undoes Mark's jeans.

Mark is about to say, "What the hell are you doing?" because _anyone_ could walk past or come in but Eduardo's mouth is on him before he can get the words out, and he groans, and shoots a hand out to steady himself against the counter and gets a hand in Eduardo's stupid, perfect hair.

"The door's open," Mark hisses. "Wardo - fuck - someone could come in."

Eduardo pulls off, and he's on his knees looking up at Mark, and his mouth is all red from eating strawberries and also from being around Mark's cock, and Mark is so attracted to him that he almost can't let himself look. Eduardo says, "You'd better hurry up, then," and then goes at it again. Mark wants to stop him, because seriously, anyone could walk in and this is not the sort of publicity Facebook _or_ Eduardo’s needs, but instead he tries not to pull Eduardo's hair too hard when his hand clenches into a fist, and tries not to let his knees buckle when Eduardo does something potentially illegal with his tongue. Eduardo strokes the crease between Mark's hip and his thigh, holds him steady, and it's practically in public, and Mark is so into this it's embarrassing. Eduardo is rubbing little circles into Mark's right hip with his thumb, and Mark's mouth tastes like fruit and chocolate, and he comes down Eduardo's throat without warning, buckling over at the waist.

//

"Oh my god, Mark, you _totally_ just got laid!"

"Shut _up,_ Dustin."

//

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: hypothetically

Out of curiosity, what would be the potential ramifications if the CEO of an internationally successful internet company was caught being blown in a local bakery?

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: not enough alcohol in the world to rid me of these mental images

DO NOT EVEN JOKE, MARK. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT?

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: dustin would say chillax

Relax, no-one saw.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: (no subject because you have destroyed my soul)

Please stop talking about this or I will sue you for emotional abuse.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: (no subject because I am CEO and don't need one)

I think I can afford better lawyers than you can.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: (no subject because my soul is still recovering)

Are you at least going to introduce me to Eduardo? I've never met him but everyone who has (Dustin) seems highly enamored, and if there's a possibility that I'm going to see his name alongside yours on a rap sheet for public indecency, I think it might be nice if I had a face to go with it.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: PARTAY

DUDE Chris has the best ideas, we should totally have a party and invite Eduardo. IT IS PRACTICALLY STILL FALL AS MARK SAID THAT ONE TIME IN A NON PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE WAY. LET'S HAVE A SEASONAL OFFICE PARTY. WHO DOESN'T LOVE FALL THERE ARE FALLING LEAVES AND EVERYTHING, THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT.

AND EDUARDO CAN BAKE US STUFF FOR IT

IT'S A WIN-WIN

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: BETRAYAL

Why do you do these things to me. Why do you give Dustin these ideas. Where is the correlation between you meeting Wardo and us having an office party. Why must we have a party. I can't even punctuate these questions, Chris, look what you have done.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: TASTE MY BETRAYAL, ZUCKERBERG, IT TASTES LIKE THE FRAGMENTS OF MY SOUL DID

VENGEANCE IS SWEET

and it will be all the sweeter if Eduardo bakes stuff for the party. seriously, ask him if he wants to cater it or something.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: re: BETRAYAL

you realise this party is not actually going to happen, right?

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: re: BETRAYAL

guess again, mon brave

//

When Mark turns up at Eduardo's in the morning, Chris is already at the counter. Eduardo is laughing. Mark needs approximately all the coffee before he has the mental capacity for this to be happening.

"At least this is better than when it was Dustin," he allows, graciously, slouching instantly in the chair nearest to the counter.

"Thanks," says Chris. "I have registered your heartfelt sentiments for when I select the size of your next birthday present."

Eduardo flicks the switch on the coffee machine that starts off a noise like a fucking machine gun and makes Mark wince.

"I don't know," Eduardo muses, deliberately coy. "He did make me give you my number, Mark."

"You're saying that wrong," Mark mumbles, chewing the string on his hoodie. "I think you mean, he _made_ you give me your _number_. Your version didn't quite capture the horror of the whole situation."

Eduardo slides Mark's coffee in front of him; Mark takes it, too tired to remember to be grateful, but Eduardo lets their fingers touch as the cup passes between them anyway. Chris looks like he has no idea what his feelings are doing.

"Dustin made you give Mark your number?" he asks Eduardo.

Eduardo smiles, because the mornings do not faze him once he has showered. Mark thinks about water licking down tan, wet shoulder blades, and takes a burningly hot gulp of coffee to stop that train of thought right the fuck there while there are other people around - Chris - that might mock him forever if he made a ridiculous noise and/or dragged Eduardo into the bakery's kitchen for morning sex against the sink.

"He was sort of like the gun to our bullet," Eduardo says. "Like we were already there but we just needed something to, um, shoot us."

"That metaphor didn't end up where you thought it would," says Mark. Eduardo leans over the counter, all taut lines, and flicks Mark's ear with a dishtowel. Mark goes, "Ow!" all sharply, but he doesn't really mean it.

"It was a simile, actually," Eduardo says. "I said "like" and everything."

Mark drinks more coffee, sullenly. "I thought we agreed you weren't allowed to correct me in the mornings."

"No," Eduardo says, "we agreed that I wasn't allowed to kick you in the mornings when you steal the duvet, which is not the same thing."

Mark is discovering new shades of red with his face. Chris looks like he has just discovered magic beans.

"It's true," Eduardo says, to Chris, clearly just taking Mark's discomfort and reveling in it. "He steals the duvet. He's like a burrito-man. I am cold and alone on the side, like guacamole."

"I like guacamole," says Mark, sort of half without really thinking it through, and Chris laughs, and Eduardo laughs too, but he goes a bit pink. Mark is still, like, fucking neon bright, but Eduardo is giving him this little fond look, like if Mark wasn't currently trying to fit his whole face into his coffee cup in a desperate search for caffeine and also to escape from this conversation, he'd come over and kiss him, so Mark can't really muster up that much embarrassment about it.

"Chris won't mind if you kiss me," he says, still with his face in the cup, playing right back. "Will you, Chris?"

"Not really," says Chris, who looks unreasonably proud. "But, I mean, my mind's eye might, so. And my actual eyes. Generally it would be visually inadvisable, but on principle I have no objections."

Eduardo says, "I'll spare you till he's had his coffee," and Chris laughs again, and says, "Morning breath?" and Mark says, indignant, "I am _right here_."

Chris says, "You're also mostly in that cup, so I think we're okay to ignore you for a bit."

Mark protests, still a few seconds behind, "I brush my teeth, you know."

Eduardo leans right over the counter and squeezes Mark's shoulder. Mark subsides back into silence with a show of poor grace, and lets Eduardo dig his fingers into the knot he always gets just above his left collarbone - like, what the hell even is that, how does that happen, does he type on a slant or something? - and drinks his coffee without further comment.

Chris says, "You are prepared for the amount of shit you two are going to get when Dustin sees you together, right?"

Eduardo says, "Probably."

"Be sure," Chris says. "It's going to be a lot. You're revolting together."

"Your face is revolting," Mark retorts, childishly.

Chris says, "Apparently so is your breath, so shut it."

Eduardo is laughing with a hand over his mouth, and Mark rolls his shoulder around, feeling the difference from this morning. As much as he's aware he should probably be put down for thinking this, it was weird to wake up without Eduardo's breath warm on the back of his neck, Eduardo with his arm flung too heavily over Mark's chest. He slugs back the last of his coffee, and then there it is, sudden, interrupting all Mark's other thoughts, the answer to the problem that sent him home last night, kept him up till dawn.

He stands up so fast that the chair legs scrape painfully on the floor, but he doesn't care. "I have to go," he says, already on his way to the door. "Chris?"

"I need to talk to Eduardo about the party," Chris says. "You go ahead."

Mark doesn't have time to think about how ominous that sounds, because he's got it, he's finally actually got it, and he heads for work as fast as he can without tripping over the tops of his flip-flops.

He surfaces a couple of hours later, the ache above his collarbone starting up again, and it's only then that he realises he didn't say goodbye to Eduardo this morning. He doesn't ordinarily notice when he misses stuff like this, because whatever he's missed it for is always more important, but - it's Eduardo. He gets his phone out.

_I fixed the news feed lag_ , he sends.

_It's okay_ , Eduardo sends back, like Mark had apologised. _You coming over tonight?_

_Yes_ , Mark sends, without even thinking about it, and then, because he feels like he should, _if you're not busy._

_I suppose I can make time_ , Mark gets, a second later, and he can picture Eduardo's raised eyebrow, carefully careless shrug, and his easy dissolve into laughter, because he sucks at pretence.

_I'd say I don't want to impose_ , Mark sends, _but clearly I do, so that would be a lie._

_god you are so sensitive_ , Eduardo texts. 

_blow me._

_okay :)_

Mark is dating a guy who puts a smiley face in texts about blowjobs. He's surprisingly okay with it.

//

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: ET TU BRUTUSES

you both went to eduardo's without me

I feel aloner than ever 

you can take my dignity but you can never take my baked goods

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: I think you mean "Brutii". I'm not even touching "aloner".

sometimes your grasp on the english language makes me really sad, Dustin. You got into _Harvard_.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: settle up, bitch

he said "it's Brutii", didn't he? Five dollars, if you please.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: i am not the bitch in this or any other scenario mr hughes

you are the bitch

also possibly mark is the bitch, because hot damn you know eduardo tops

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: NOT ENOUGH HORROR IN THE WORLD

why, Dustin?

why do you do these things to me?

Mark, don't you even dare reply. I AM WARNING YOU.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: jealousy

Chris: fuck off, you don't scare me.

Dustin: just fuck off.

 

from. chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: how do you fucking do these things to me

fine.

I owe you five dollars.

Eduardo obviously tops.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: like a boss

you almost got me with your fake outrage, christopher. sneaky move, copying in mark. i love it when you rise to my bait-y level

NO-ONE CAN RESIST THE MOSKOVITZ BETTING POOL

OR THE MOSKOVITZ BREEDING POOL

OH YEAH I DID

BA-DUM-TISH

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: work on your cymbal noises

that was terrible

and you misspelt "sink".

And it wouldn't have mattered if I copied Mark in or not. He's probably reading this right now. He has no concept of personal boundaries or privacy. Hi, Mark.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: do not deny our love

I am sending this to Mark to save him the trouble of hacking into our accounts, because I am such a good friend.

UNLIKE SOME.

CHRIS.

it makes me sad that you have yet to realise how pure our love is

and that you continue to believe that i live on the same spiritual plane as you when clearly i have ascended

so I spelt "rise" right

so suck it.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: it's not that it's a river in egypt, it's that it isn't even a puddle

Dustin, I will never suck anything of yours.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: inter-office romance

mark chris won't love me back

stop pretending to be busy and remind him of his love for me

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: mark

mark

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: don't ignore me

mark

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: resistance is futile

mark?

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I can do this all day, you are only hurting yourself

MARK???????

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I will come to your office if you don't reply soon, don't think I won't

_MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRK_

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: make it stop

whatever you did to dustin, please undo it.

I will give you a fucking raise.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: FINE

what do you want me to say, moscovitz? our love is pure like the end of a rainbow?

stop bugging mark, one day he'll snap and kill you. he has that look about him. 

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: the end of a rainbow is all muddy, christopher, why would you sully our feelings with mud??

my feelers are hurt.

also you are wrong about mark. he does have a look about him, but it is the look of a subby little bottom.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you hired him

there are some things you cannot ask a man to take, mark, and one of those things is reading that email. 

he is your problem now

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: success

we cracked hughes. you owe me ten dollars.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: shan't

you are a billionaire, it seems unfair that I should have to pay you

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: you are hardly destitute

I'm also fucking Eduardo. 

Life dealt me the good cards, moscovitz, so suck it.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: SHARE YOUR BRAIN BLEACH WITH ME, I KNOW YOU HAVE SOME

i see the error of my ways, christopher. i shall repent. i will never say suck it again. 

mark has broken me.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: victory! 

we broke dustin

enjoy your peace and quiet.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: e.saverin@gmail.com  
subj: bring me all the muffins and bagels in the land

broke them both

good plan.

 

from: e.saverin@gmail.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I'm a baker, not a delivery boy

you're welcome.

//

It's decided, by the three people involved who are not Mark, that the four of them should go out for a drink together. Eduardo had turned to Mark the next time he saw him after meeting Chris and asked him outright whether the party was just an excuse to introduce him properly to his friends, and Mark had been forced to admit it was, and Eduardo had said there was an easy way around that, and he'd pulled out his phone and texted Chris about it -- Mark said, foreseeing trouble in his future, " _You_ have _Chris's_ number?" -- and before Mark could really do anything about it, it was arranged. 

So, this is great. Eduardo can be friends with Mark's friends. Mark can cope with that. They can all go out for drinks together in the same bar that Eduardo took Mark to that one time while Mark watched his mouth around the neck of a beer bottle. What about that situation could possibly be awkward or weird or horrible? 

" _Everything_ ," Mark complains, as Eduardo locks up the bakery. "Everything about this is weird and awkward."

Everything also feels a lot like it did all those weeks ago, except that this time when Eduardo leads him down the street, he sticks his hand in Mark's back pocket instead of throwing his arm around his shoulders.

Mark shivers, all over, and focuses hard on not _getting_ hard.

"Wardo," he grumbles. "You are not helping."

They arrive at the bar, and Chris and Dustin are already there, beaming at them from a booth in the corner. Mark steels himself for the inevitable, and Eduardo, who apparently feels Mark tense up, just turns to smile at him, looking endlessly endeared.

"Aren't I the one that's supposed to be nervous in this scenario?" he says.

"No," says Mark, under his breath, "because you don't know Dustin."

Everything goes okay to begin with, and Dustin doesn't greet Eduardo with anything higher than his normal exuberance level, and Eduardo says it's nice to see them both again, because he has stupidly good manners, and Mark edges into the booth and mentally crosses all his fingers and toes that this goes well, and he loses neither friends, nor staff, nor Eduardo by the end of it. It's not that Mark doesn't want them all to get on -- he really _does_ \-- but, just, he's never had anyone who liked _him_ best before, as unavoidably stupid as he knows it sounds. He and Chris and Dustin have always been a _group_ , and then within that group, it's been Chris-and-Dustin and Mark, the guy with horrible sleeping patterns, the creator of Facebook, the CEO. Now Mark has Eduardo, and he doesn't know quite how that's going to work if they all start _hanging out_ together, or whatever the verb is for when a group of people in their twenties socialize. He also realises it is incredibly presumptuous for him to assume that Eduardo _does_ like him best, but he really hopes he does, and it's all so Disney teen drama in his head that he starts scowling down at the table.

It is at this point that Chis goes to get the drinks and recruits Dustin to help him carry them, and Dustin tries to hit on some girl who is physically so far out of his league that even Mark can tell, and is shut down in seconds. This is also about when he stops worrying about the dynamic not being right between the four of them, largely because of the more immediate, Dustin-shaped, things that present themselves for Mark to cope with instead.

"I think the problem is," says Dustin, coming back dejectedly from the bar and leaving Chris to deal with carrying four drinks by himself, "that I don't have a wingman."

Mark suddenly becomes very interested in examining his empty bottle. Avoidance, he has learned, painstakingly, is sometimes the best option when it comes to Dustin and his subtle, subtle hints.

"I said," Dustin says, much more loudly, "I don't have a wingman."

Eduardo, who is naïve and vulnerable to Dustin because he lacks the years of painful experience Mark has clogging up his memory with pain and torment, says, "I could be your wingman."

Dustin just laughs dismissively. Dustin doesn't do a lot of things dismissively, because he's inclusive to the point of being clingy, so Mark raises his eyes from the safety of the table to stare at him.

"What?" says Eduardo. "I'd be a great wingman."

"You would be the worst wingman ever," Dustin says. "Seriously, like, Brutus probably got Julius Caesar more booty."

"This is a disturbingly highbrow argument for something that basically entails ensuring a random pick-up in the bar," says Eduardo, which is part of why Mark likes him so much. "And also has some mildly alarming parallels, considering I'm not planning on _stabbing you_ any time soon." (Mark mutters, "I wouldn't be too hasty about that decision," and Dustin kicks him under the table). "But, um, go on. Why would I be so awful?'

"Because you look like _that_ ," Dustin says, gesturing to Eduardo's black pants and black button-down, his stupid hair still physics-defyingly perfect even after comedically spending half the day in a hairnet, his wry, shy smile, his big, trusting eyes. "And also because you are a baker, and once, you know, girls find that out it will be goodbye Dustin, obscure programmer, and hello hot baker dude with chocolatey eyes and twenty-four seven access to cake."

" _Hey_ ," Mark says, as Eduardo is laughing helplessly into his beer. "You work at Facebook, that's got to be good for something."

Dustin gives him a patented Dustin look. "Mark," he says. "I don't know what planet you're living on, and I don't want to visit it even with a safety suit, but _owning a bakery_ trumps working at Facebook, at least in the field of 'please come home with me, you are so pretty I want to write odes to your smile'."

"Maybe if you wrote fewer odes," Mark says, "you would have more dates. Just something to think about."

Chris comes back from the bar and sets the new beers down on the table without spilling any of them. Chris is apparently part Na'vi.

"What are we talking about?"

"Eduardo's apparent ability to repel all women from Dustin and attract them unto himself," Mark tells him, moving over to let him sit back down in the booth. "I don't know what science classes Dustin took, but he apparently had some problems with magnets."

Chris ignores this last part. "I can see Eduardo's point," he says.

Dustin says, "Thank you!" and then: " _Hey_."

"Whatever," says Chris. "I saw you at the bar. You crashed and burned."

Dustin puts his face in his hands. "You guys have it easy," he says. "You know how _guys_ work. Girls are, like - "

"From Venus?" Mark interjects.

"Yes," says Dustin. "You are all ass-banging Martians, and I have no concept of how to escape from planet homosexual and begin a happy, sexually-fulfilled life on Venus."

"You are a horrifying person," Chris says, and Mark nods, and Eduardo is grinning so widely that Mark stops worrying entirely and wonders why they haven't done this before.

The door to the bar opens at this point, and a group of girls walk in. Dustin looks at them with sad, defeated eyes.

"Come on," says Eduardo, standing up. "I bet I can get one of those girls to give you her number."

Dustin stares at him like he's holding the moon. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Eduardo says. He looks Dustin up and down. Dustin is wearing a ring on his right index finger, for reasons Mark didn't listen to him explain but had something to do with some Cosmopolitan article about women who like men who like jewellery. What Mark took away from that exchange was not Dustin's disturbingly lengthy account of his apparently very difficult decision between a man-bracelet or the silver ring he eventually settled on but rather that _Dustin reads Cosmo._

Eduardo says, "Give me your ring."

"What?" asks Dustin, but he's already sliding it off his finger. "Why?"

"You'll see," says Eduardo, turning the ring over in his hands, speculatively, and then he slips it onto his ring finger.

"Woah," says Dustin. "Are we married now?" He winks at Mark, clearly trying to wind him up. Mark tries not to let himself be wound. "Dude, I totally stole your boyfriend."

"And welcome back to planet ass-banging," says Chris. "We hope you enjoy your stay."

Dustin slaps him on the shoulder. "I take it back," he says. "Mark, you can keep him. Just," he turns to look up at Eduardo with ridiculous, pleading eyes. "Help me?"

Mark looks at the ring on Eduardo's finger and has no idea what he's feeling. It's not like he wants to marry Eduardo, he's not that far gone, and it's not quite jealousy either, but it just makes him feel a little off balance. He sort of just wants Dustin and Chris to fuck off so he can get his mouth behind Eduardo's ear and bite at his jaw in the way that makes him go red and squirm and grab at Mark's ass just to drag him closer, in case that makes everything clearer. When he looks up, Eduardo meets his gaze, biting his lip. Mark wants him so much it scares him, just a little. He's not used to feeling like this about a person, associates this more with the rush of code that narrows his focus down to _qwertyuiop_ over and over until he can lift his head again, drained, with it out of his system. Eduardo is like code he can't write out of him, stuck in his blood.

Mark looks down at the beer in his hand, the only one he's had that night, and thinks he needs a lot more before he can justify thinking things like that.

Chris gives him this knowing, sideways glance that makes Mark shift uncomfortably in his seat, and nudges a second bottle of beer towards him.

"I'm going to need a volunteer," says Eduardo, theatrically, before Mark can lift the drink to his mouth. "Mark, you're my volunteer."

"I am?" says Mark, with slight reluctance, but Eduardo leans straight over Dustin and yanks Mark up to his feet, and Mark goes, " _Fine_ ," like he minds, but Eduardo is beaming at him all playfully, and Mark has zero firewalls for his face, is permanently defenseless.

Eduardo slips his hand into Mark's and leads him over to the bar, resting just near the group of girls and signalling for the bartender in a way that makes Dustin's ring catch in the overhead light. One of the girls notices, and then notices Eduardo's hand still linked in with Mark's, and gasps.

Mark has no idea what is happening.

"Oh my god," says the girl. "You're married?"

"Not technically," says Eduardo, with a slightly sad smile, "California law and everything, but," his smile changes to a full-out grin, "yes, we are."

The girl nods. "Domestic partnership?"

Eduardo puts his arm around Mark's shoulders. "Yes," he says, happily. "Newly-weds, if you can still call it that."

"I think you'd have to call it newly domestically-partnered," Mark offers. "But that isn't as catchy."

The girl is giving Mark a look he's used to receiving from girls in bars, but Eduardo gives his shoulder a squeeze, and rolls his eyes conspiratorially at the girl, and she softens.

"I think it's great," she says. "How did you two meet?"

Mark opens his mouth, and Eduardo elbows him discreetly in the ribs.

"Actually," Eduardo says, turning to point out Dustin, who is watching this play out with an expression torn between rapture and desperate hope, and who changes this pathetic longing to an intense stare at the bottles lining the wall behind the bar when the girl turns her attention to him too, "this guy introduced us."

Mark says, when Eduardo elbows him again, "Ow," and then, off Eduardo's third jab to his side, "Yeah, um, we really owe him a lot." He swallows, and then, figuring that getting Dustin a girlfriend might logically mean he'll shut up about _not_ having a girlfriend, adds, "He just wants to make other people happy. He's that kind of guy."

It comes out sort of stiltedly, but Eduardo beams down at him, proud, and the girl looks a little bit like she's melting. Mark will never, ever understand women.

"How amazing," she says, and then, miraculously: "Um - do you know if he's seeing anyone himself?" She's gone a bit pink. Mark cannot actually believe this is happening. 

Eduardo says, leaning in and dropping his voice, "He had a bad break-up about a year ago, and since then he's really only been looking out for his friends, you know? I don't think he's thought about himself for a while. Between you and me, I don't think he knows how lonely he is."

The girl stares at Dustin. Dustin stares harder at the bar, which Mark thinks makes him look like a crazy alcoholic, but apparently the female gaze is different to his because the girl goes, like she's made up her mind, "Right, okay," and walks over to him.

Dustin looks like he doesn't know what to do with his hands. Luckily, the girl solves this problem for him by taking one of his hands in hers, taking a pen out of her skirt pocket -- why she has a pen in her pocket Mark doesn't know, but that's going to be Dustin's problem, not his -- and writes something down on his palm. Dustin looks like he's won the lottery.

The girl comes back over. "You make a great wingman," she says to Eduardo, who inclines his head in agreement. "I mean, I don't buy the story about his break-up for a second," (Mark's opinion of her abruptly levels up), "but you two are clearly happy, and you clearly like him, so what's the harm in trying, right?"

She goes back to her friends, and Mark and Eduardo go back to their table, and Dustin is practically ecstatic.

"Her name is _Marcia_ ," he's saying, to a beleaguered-looking Chris. "She could be Marcia Moskovitz. Wouldn't that be a beautiful name?" 

Eduardo grins. "My work here is done."

Over the course of the evening, when Eduardo has returned Dustin's ring to him and Dustin has thanked him so many times even _Eduardo_ has told him to stop, they talk about games consoles -- Dustin defends the Wii with disturbing passion, while Mark and Chris hail firmly from the Xbox corner and Eduardo says he's always been more of a handheld type of guy -- and Pacman strategies, and Dustin tells Eduardo stories about Harvard and then Mark and Chris tell Eduardo _true_ stories about Harvard, and Eduardo laughs at them, and Mark can't stop grinning.

They order a plate of nachos at some point, and Mark realises he hasn't eaten anything since Eduardo shoved a doughnut at him that morning, and digs in.

"Ugh," says Chris, watching him eat. "Mark, didn't anyone ever teach you table manners?"

"Yes," says Mark, with his mouth full, "but people also taught me art history, and I ignored that too."

"I am truly sorry for your gain," says Dustin, to Eduardo, jokingly. "He isn't worth it."

"I don't know," says Eduardo, and grins. "He sort of is."

Chris and Dustin groan, and Dustin covers his eyes and says, "You two are giving me diabetes," and Mark is bright pink, and secretly pleased.

At the end of the night, Chris goes off to call a taxi and Dustin goes off to the bathroom, and Mark and Eduardo are left alone together for a while for the first time since getting to the bar.

"Well," says Mark. "That was okay."

Eduardo rolls his eyes. "Of course," he says. "I am a normal person and can make friends with nice people. You are the only one who makes friends _despite_ being who you are."

He presses his thigh against Mark to prove he's kidding. Mark doesn't really care _why_ Eduardo touches him, as long as he wants to keep doing it.

Eduardo says, nudging him again ,"So you think it went well?" Mark doesn't quite get it, because both Chris and Dustin had met him and liked him before, and even if they hadn't, it's not like Mark would have stopped seeing Eduardo if they'd disapproved or whatever, but he thinks, looking at Eduardo's face, that maybe, somehow, Eduardo doesn't know that.

"They like you more than they like me," Mark says. "Seriously, Wardo."

Eduardo's not had that much to drink and it's not that hot in the bar, but Mark can see his cheeks turn pink. He doesn't sound any different though, when he says, "I like them too."

"Good," says Mark, and then looks down in surprise when Eduardo links their hands together under the table.

It's not that loud in the bar now either, so Eduardo doesn't have to lean as close to Mark's ear as he does, when he whispers, somewhere between admission and affection, "I like you most, though."

"How are you even real?" Mark asks. It keeps replaying in his head, like he's fourteen, _I like you best_ , like looping code. God, he is so ill-equipped for this. "You are a disgraceful excuse for a person."

Eduardo lowers his voice further. "I could disgrace you," he says, and that's such a ridiculous line that Mark almost has to laugh but he's too busy being exceptionally turned on to do anything else. Eduardo's eyes are dark, and his pupils are huge, and he hasn't had enough to drink to make them look like that - and so it must be Mark that's doing it, Mark that's making Eduardo look like he wants to push Mark back in the booth and just fucking go to town on him, and Mark can't process that even a little bit. His palms are sweating, and Eduardo is still holding his hand so he must be able to feel it, but he doesn't take his hand away. Mark thinks other people would do, but Eduardo doesn't. 

Chris reappears at this point, and Mark practically strains something trying to scooch to the edge of the seat fast enough, getting his crotch safely out of view under the table. He hears Eduardo swallow a laugh next to him, turning it into an incredibly unconvincing cough.

Luckily, Chris is a decent human being, and a guy, and doesn't say anything. Unluckily, Dustin comes back from the bathroom right then and goes, over Chris's subtle _shut up, Dustin_ cough, "Mark, do you want to share a taxi?"

No. No, Mark really does not. What he wants to do is invent teleportation right the fuck now so he can just zap himself and Eduardo back to Eduardo's bed, or any bed, or any flat surface that is not in full view of other people, and fuck him till neither of them can speak.

He coughs. "Actually," he says, and this is a situation familiar to him from witnessing it in bars at Harvard, guys trying to fob their friends off with excuses acceptable for mixed company, trying to be gentlemanly but also get laid in the immediate future - except that this isn't mixed company, and even if it was, Mark has never been called gentlemanly in his life, so: "I'm going to go back with Eduardo." He turns in his seat to face him. "And then I'm going to fuck him till he can't walk straight tomorrow."

Eduardo turns the brightest shade of red Mark has ever seen anyone go, choking, while Chris goes, " _Jesus_ , Mark," and Dustin makes some kind of hybrid gleeful/horrified high-pitched sound in the background.

"So - that's a no to the taxi?" Dustin checks, faux-obnoxious in a high-pitched voice, and Mark flips him off, still grinning at Eduardo. Their hands are still joined under the table. Eduardo tightens his fingers, grinning back.

"Okay, well, nice to see you again, Eduardo," says Chris, obviously keen to remove himself from this situation as soon as possible. "It would maybe be nicer if Mark had boundaries, but we can't have everything, I suppose."

"You too," says Eduardo, looking like he can't physically wipe the smile off his face. "And you, Dustin."

Eduardo has Mark's politeness reserves in spades. Mark shifts a little further to the edge of the seat.

When Mark shows up for work the next morning, Dustin pops party streamers over his head, and Mark can't even bring himself to mind.

//

Mark doesn't stay at Eduardo's every night, but as the weeks go by he's there more often than not. It's just convenient that way, because Eduardo has to get up stupidly early for work, and it's close enough to the Facebook offices that Mark _doesn't_ have to get up stupidly early, and Mark can basically work from anywhere as long as he has his laptop, so that's not a problem. He doesn't notice, at first, because there's an inefficiency in the photo tagging system that's been bugging him for a while, and with the profile update done he's got time to sit and work it out, running practices of different solutions and discarding every one, frustrated. Eduardo doesn't say anything when Mark gets snappy and tense, and he lets Mark talk at him about coding structures, trying to work out what it is that's wrong, and takes Mark's hands in his to work his thumbs into Mark's skin, and Mark lets his eyes close while Eduardo massages out the small cramping muscles but he can't stop thinking entirely, not while there's a problem he can't find the answer for.

It gets to him enough that he doesn't go to Eduardo's for three straight days, wired in, catching sleep in two hour snatches as the sun rises. It riles him, not being able to fix something, when he knows he _should_ be able to. It's like if he just gave it another hour, stayed up a little longer, he'd get it, it'd click - but he gives it _days_ , and nothing is slotting into place. He's shaking with the amount of caffeine he's had, and with anger, that he can't _get it right_. He hates this, when he's the best at something, something that's _his_ , and he still can't make it work. 

Chris eventually orders him out of the office when he barks something at his assistant, at the absolute end of his tether, when she asks him for the third time that afternoon if he's sure she can't get him something to eat, and, _yes_ , he's fucking sure, he just needs to _get this done_ , why can't she just see that.

Mark says, exasperated, exhausted, "Isn't it her fucking _job_ to take orders?" and Chris folds his arms, and presses his lips into the thinnest of disappointed lines, and forces him to go home.

And, like it's mid-summer and the power's gone out, like this will always be Mark's choice when he's too wired-in, too worked out, to even _make_ a choice, he goes to Eduardo's.

Eduardo doesn't pay him any attention when he turns up and plugs his laptop into the socket by the table nearest the window, and Mark doesn't say anything to him, just tugs his headphones on and starts typing again, writing out yesterday's discarded solutions in case he catches something he's been missing. He's tired, and frustrated enough to turn it inward, resenting himself for just not _getting it_ , and he codes fierce and miserable while Eduardo comes in and out of the kitchen, restocking the display.

Mark swims back up to consciousness a couple of hours later, hazily surprised that he's waking up at all when he has no memory of falling asleep, and he's reaching for his laptop again when Eduardo is there, all warm, gentle touches, quiet words like Mark's a spooked foal, a teething child, putting the back of his hand on Mark's forehead. Mark grumbles something incoherent and drained, and Eduardo closes his laptop and eases him gently up out of the chair and leads him to the bedroom, pressing him down into the pillows, tenderly, and pulling the duvet around him. Mark is going to say something about how he's not a child, but he's asleep before he even opens his mouth.

He's not embarrassed about it when he wakes up, because this is who is and what he does and Eduardo should know that, but he does kiss Eduardo's shoulder, slightly timid, while Eduardo snores lightly next to him in the early morning light. Eduardo stirs, like he's been listening out for Mark all night, even in his sleep, and reaches up a hand to pat Mark on the arm, still asleep, and Mark settles back down into the duvet.

//

Mark asks, one day, still curious, why Eduardo decided to open the bakery. Eduardo just smiles, and says he wanted to do it, but it's like there's something more to the story, and Eduardo isn't volunteering it, so Mark doesn't push.

//

For all that Eduardo can be soft-eyed and gentle hands when Mark is fractious and cross and worked into the ground, he can also be actually _insatiable_. It makes Mark hot just thinking about him, sometimes, about how much Eduardo sometimes wants it, and Mark wants it just as fucking much.

Eduardo goes down on Mark while he's coding, one night, slowly, pulling back whenever Mark stops typing, until Mark's thighs are shaking and he's hitting a key maybe only every ten seconds, and when he comes he slams his hands down on the keyboard and has to clean up the code while Eduardo licks up the mess on Mark's stomach. Mark genuinely cannot believe that this is his life, that Eduardo could do this to him, would do this for him. 

He is also determined to retaliate, because he has never been one to back down from a challenge.

Another night, Eduardo stays at his, for a change, and Mark pushes him down onto the sofa and straddles his hips and tells him to start talking. Mark's thought about this, and while he did consider getting Eduardo off while he was _actually_ baking, he then took into account the amount of things that could go wrong with that, and the whole most accidents take place in the home thing, and, well, add _that_ to the list of things Mark really wouldn't want to explain in the ER. So instead he tells Eduardo very seriously to start talking, and gets him to recite recipes for macaroons and cookies while Mark starts to finger him open, and Eduardo's voice starts to waver. It should be absolutely ludicrous, listening to Eduardo list ingredient measurements while Mark circles his fingers inside him, but it's somehow really, _really_ not.

Mark keeps this up until Eduardo is batting at Mark's shoulders with sweat-damp palms, small movements, fluttering fingers, and Mark looks up from underneath his sweaty curls falling in his eyes to see Eduardo throwing his head back, the line of his throat. "Come on," Eduardo is saying now, more breath than words. "Mark, come on, come on."

Mark is so turned on he might as well be a fucking light bulb, a laptop, a flicked switch somewhere left to burn out a fuse. He is hot enough that it feels like he's burning. Eduardo keeps making these little aborted movements with his hips, like he keeps remembering to be polite, even fucking now, and it makes Mark want to fuck the courtesy right out of him.

"Okay," says Mark, pausing to slick up a third finger. "What about muffins?"

"What?" Eduardo's voice is hoarse.

"Muffins," says Mark, fighting to sound conversational, not to let his want out, not yet. He slides the next finger in, and Eduardo straight out groans.

"Blueberry," he asks, panting, because he is just as stubborn as Mark, "or chocolate?"

Mark thinks about strawberries and chocolate cake, the sun on his back, the open door, and then has to think very hard about the hygienic state of the shared bathroom in the Kirkland suite so that this isn't all over right here and now.

"Chocolate," he says, and if his voice isn't entirely steady then, well, fuck it. He's CEO, not a fucking magician. He dares anyone to keep their voice level when they're knuckle-deep in Eduardo, when Eduardo is flushed from cheekbones to hips.

"All right," says Eduardo, equally unsteadily, and Mark presses the palm of his free hand flat out across Eduardo's right hip. He is under no illusions about his ability to physically hold Eduardo down, but he presses down anyway, just to feel Eduardo rolling his hips beneath Mark's hand, the tremors of keeping still.

"Um," says Eduardo, licking his lips, and Mark is allowed to look at that now, doesn't have to tear his eyes away, and he looks at Eduardo's red, wet mouth as he says, "Good start."

"Fuck you," Eduardo says. "Um, okay, so, flour. You need flour for muffins."

"And?"

Mark twists his fingers inventively, consideringly, and Eduardo's back actually arches up off the couch. "Fuck," he says, desperate, cracked. " _Fuck_."

"So these aren't family friendly muffins, then?"

Eduardo kicks at him with his heels, shuddering, but gets out, "Probably not, no."

"Interesting."

Mark makes Eduardo go through the whole list of ingredients while he moves his fingers shallowly in and out of him, and Eduardo's voice cracks and wavers but he doesn't give in. Mark is so turned on it is beyond ridiculous. He can feel himself shaking where his hand is pressed against Eduardo's hip, but that could be Eduardo, or maybe it's both of them. _Fuck_.

"Okay," says Mark, choked up. "Okay, okay, okay."

Eduardo props himself shakily up on his elbows, and his face is bright pink and he's sweating everywhere and his hair is matted and messy, and Mark wants to fuck him right now, or sooner, if at all possible. "Okay?" he says, and Mark hates him for still being capable of mockery. 

He curls his fingers again, to make Eduardo gasp and tip his head back again, and Mark can see his stomach muscles jumping and he leans down, bent double, and kisses just beneath Eduardo's belly button, tongues his way down, breathing in. 

"Jesus _Christ_ ," says Eduardo, wrecked, as Mark just breathes out against the tip of his cock, and then, breathless, grabbing at Mark's shoulders, just Mark's name, over and over until Mark looks up at him, amazed.

Eduardo holds his gaze. "Mark," he says, and he is definitely shaking, and this is absolutely hands fucking down the hottest thing that has ever happened in Mark's life, or anyone's life, and Eduardo says, "I give in, I give in, fuck me."

_Fucking hell_.

Mark slicks himself up and fumbles on the condom while Eduardo watches with wide, dark eyes, and Mark leans down to kiss his open mouth when he pushes in, and Eduardo swears in Portuguese, and Mark bites his own tongue to keep from coming right then. He goes as slowly as he can, until Eduardo is babbling half-English nonsense against Mark's mouth, his jaw, and Mark's arms are trembling from holding him up, and he's starting to hear white noise, shut down tones roaring and insistent in his ears. 

"You win," Eduardo is saying, in halting gasps, between kisses, between biting at Mark's lower lip. "You win, you win."

Mark's eyes sting, and he's not capable of real thought at this point, but he's hoping that's just from the sweat dripping down from his forehead. " _Wardo_ ," he says, and he braces himself on one shaky forearm to take Eduardo in hand, uneven, rough strokes, catching his thumb over the head until Eduardo cries out and comes, shuddering, hot against their stomachs, and then Mark actually does just white out with it, burying his head against Eduardo's shoulder.

When he comes back to himself, bleary-eyed, Eduardo is laughing helplessly into Mark's collarbone.

"What," says Mark, too tired to even turn his voice up into a question, too tired to even maybe be insulted.

" _Muffins_ ," Eduardo says, clutching at Mark's back, kissing every part of him close enough to his mouth to reach. "Have you ever heard such rubbish dirty talk in your life?"

"Shut up," says Mark. "You are a _baker_."

Eduardo is still laughing, and it's contagious, and there's this actual bubble of happiness expanding somewhere inside Mark's chest, and he laughs too, and they hold on to each other, sticky and disgusting on the couch that Mark is going to have to _burn_ , and Mark's never been more content in his entire life.

//

Dustin comes into his office the next day, biting into an over-sized chocolate muffin, and Mark actually full on chokes.

Dustin pauses, mid-chew and looks down at the muffin in his hand. He looks back up at Mark, who is now puce and chugging the water his assistant left optimistically on his desk like his life depends on it.

"Is there some traumatizing thing you could tell me that would put me off muffins for life?" he asks, like he really, really hopes there isn't.

Mark focuses harder on getting liquid into his body before he just dehydrates from sheer dismay. 

"Please don't tell me," Dustin says, pitifully. "Mark, please don't take away the muffins. My life would be sad and empty without muffins. I really like them. Why would you take away the muffins, Mark? Why would you do that to me?"

Mark says, weakly, "Please stop saying _muffins_."

"This is going against all my moral and ethical codes," says Dustin -- Mark goes, "You have _moral and ethical codes_?" -- "but please, please, keep your private life private."

Mark nods vehemently. Dustin is backing away.

"Keep it in your pants and out of the muffins!" he yells, when the door is open and the entire office can hear him. "This is not American Pie!"

Mark wonders if it would be possible to install a hermetically sealed office in the building, or if maybe just anti-Dustin retina scanners would be the more financially sound decision.

//

Mark's phone goes a couple of minutes later. He reads it despite his better judgment.

_its not american muffin either. that would have been a different film altogether. what is wrong with you, muffins are not sexy. apart from sex muffins, but they are not cake!!! THAT IS JUST AN EXPRESSION. EXPRESSIONS ARE NOT CAKE MARK. THEY ARE NOT CAKE._

//

"I hate you," Mark grumbles, that night, pressing his face further into Eduardo's pillows. "Why did you sell Dustin a _muffin_ , I want to die. I hate you."

"You love me," Eduardo says, joking along with him, but he smoothes Mark's hair back off his forehead, and Mark sort of makes this noise like a dog before it falls asleep, and noses at Eduardo's shoulder, comfortable. 

God, this is so undignified.

Eduardo pulls the covers further up over both of them, and puts his arm back around Mark, and Mark grumbles something else, incoherent and petulant, and goes to sleep.

//

Sometimes, when Mark is awake in the early hours of the morning, coding only by the light of his laptop in case turning on the overhead in the living room would somehow wake Eduardo up, he hears Eduardo turning restlessly in his sleep. Normally Eduardo sleeps like he's died, heavy limbs everywhere and pinning Mark to the bed, like a needy sleeping starfish, and doesn't move until his alarm goes off. Admittedly this is alarming in itself, because Mark gets pins and needles from not being able to roll onto his side, but he doesn't like to move in case it wakes Eduardo up, and Mark doesn't sleep a lot anyway and Eduardo looks so tired in the mornings sometimes that he figures it's worth a few numb extremities to get Eduardo some rest. On the other hand, it's unusual enough for Eduardo not to just be out like a light that the first time Mark hears him shifting in the sheets, he goes in to check he's okay and not, like, fevered or anything. Mark has never particularly cared about anyone else's sleeping habits before now, but he doesn't want Eduardo to be unrested.

Virtuously, this is only partly because he doesn't want Eduardo to be too tired for sex.

Eduardo doesn't look sick, when Mark pads up to his side of the bed, but Mark waits around for a minute, just in case. Eduardo's frowning in his sleep, and his fingers are tight around the corner of a pillow, and he's muttering something Mark can't hear. Mark isn't worried, because everyone has bad dreams -- when Facebook first started, Mark actually had nightmares about the servers going down and all the first users dropping out in disgust and leaving Mark to stare helplessly at the numbers dwindling on his computer screen, desperate and despairing -- so he goes back out to the living room, and leaves Eduardo to it.

Another time, though, Mark is actually asleep himself when he wakes up because Eduardo is shaking so hard that he's shaking _Mark_ too. Mark props himself up on one elbow, and stares at him. He doesn't know what to do when someone isn't okay. Mark doesn't know whether to wake him up, or whether Eduardo would just be embarrassed, or whether _Mark_ would be embarrassed -- _feelings_ not being his specialty -- but then Eduardo makes a low, pained noise, and Mark takes hold of his shoulder and shakes him awake before he's even given it another thought. 

Eduardo wakes up startled, and won't meet Mark's eye. Mark lies back down in the pillows, and pretends he's asleep, even though it's blatantly obvious he's not, and Eduardo lies back down too, and Mark listens to his breathing even out again. When Mark's half asleep, Eduardo reaches over and links his fingers in with Mark's, and Mark pretends _harder_ that he's definitely not awake, and Eduardo presses his forehead against Mark's shoulder, thankful.

Mark doesn't mention it the next day, and neither does Eduardo, and Mark pretends to forget about it.

He doesn't know what to do when someone isn't okay, because he's not used to wanting someone else to be okay all the time.

//

Thanksgiving is coming up, and Eduardo has been testing out so many pie recipes that the bakery kitchen has started to permanently smell like pastry. He makes Mark try them, all of them, pumpkin and sweet potato and pecan, and gets frustrated when Mark just likes all the different variants of them. Mark does not see what relevance his preference for cinnamon over nutmeg has to anything, but Eduardo apparently takes it quite seriously. Mark supposes maybe it's like his decision not to put ads on the site in the early days, something only he can see the value in.

Or maybe Eduardo just takes pie really seriously.

"You have to like one better than the others, Mark," he says, rolling out pie dough while Mark stares at the streak of flour on his cheek. "Which one is it?"

"I thought you were going to sell all the types," Mark says. "People like all the types of pie."

Eduardo huffs at him. "Mark," he says. "Over the last two weeks I have made a lot - a _lot_ \- of pies. Have you honestly not noticed any difference?"

Mark shrugs. "No."

Eduardo stares at him, slightly wild-eyed.

"What?" Mark says. "It's _pie_." 

Eduardo puts down the rolling pin and puts his head in his hands. "Oh my god," he says. "You are useless."

"You have just rubbed flour all over your face," Mark points out. "Whose life skills shall we criticize now?"

Eduardo makes a sad little noise. Mark wants to put his arms around his waist, press himself against Eduardo's back to kiss his neck, and so he does. Eduardo wilts back against him. 

"I have made so much pie," he says.

"I have _eaten_ so much pie," Mark says, and pie is starting to sound like a made-up word. "Let's have sex."

Eduardo laughs, verging on hysterical. His hair goes up Mark's nose. Mark doesn't really mind.

"Yeah," Eduardo says, still hiccupping with laughter, turning round in Mark's arms. "Let's do that."

//

 

One evening, they're watching America's Funniest Home Videos --

 

"I am _tired_ ," Eduardo says, firmly. "I have been spinning sugar all day, Mark, do you know how difficult that is?"

"I have been coding all day," Mark retorts. "You _don't_ know how difficult that is."

Eduardo gives him this look like _I make creme brulée, Mark, I have a blowtorch in the kitchen, do you want to keep arguing this point and insulting my intelligence or do you want to shut the fuck up and give me back the damn remote?_ and Mark gets distracted by how attractive Eduardo is when he's irritated, and passes over the remote.

 

\-- which is actually more like Mark determinedly ignoring it and the immense hatred for the human race that canned laughter inspires in him and coding petulantly instead, and Eduardo just sacked out and boneless on the couch next to him, but, whatever, it's on. About halfway through, there's some video of a baby giggling toothlessly at one of its doubtlessly incompetent parents zooming a spoon up to its face and making airplane noises, because apparently this is new and original and not something people have been doing since they fucking well invented airplanes. Maybe before airplanes, it was "open up for the choo choo train", and then before that "eat this, stupid child, or the saber-toothed tiger will eat _you_ ". Mark can feel himself getting stupider by the second, like it's not a myth and the tv has started literally rotting his brain, but then he hears Eduardo laugh.

He looks up, disbelieving, from the laptop screen, ready to rip the ever-living piss out of Eduardo forever for laughing at something probably even _Dustin_ is over by now, but whatever he was going to say sort of sticks in his throat or something equally stupid when he actually sees Eduardo. He's gone all soft, like Mark's mom when she sees babies in strollers in the street and has to stop and coo while Mark shifts his weight pointedly from foot to foot and clears his throat a lot, and Mark - it's - Eduardo is - 

Mark never had this much trouble forming thoughts before he met Eduardo.

Eduardo turns to him, still smiling. "Shut up," he says, and at least he seems to know this is not a thing normal guys should do. "You're supposed to be coding."

"Can't code when you're gurgling at infants," Mark says, meaning to be churlish, but it comes out something else entirely, and he's going red with it but Eduardo leans in and kisses him, licking his way into Mark's mouth, putting his hands warm against the tops of Mark's thighs. Mark makes this annoying helpless sound into Eduardo's mouth, and Eduardo's mouth splits into a grin, and he takes Mark's laptop out of his hands and sets it down on the floor without breaking the kiss, because Mark is dating a super hot, super flexible baker, and these are just things that happen in his life now.

"I was," he says, a token protest, and Eduardo says, "No, you weren't, you were pretending to code so you could cast judgment on the good people of America and their camcorders," and Mark says, "But," because he's an idiot who doesn't know when to shut up, and Eduardo laughs into his mouth and shoves him gently onto his back.

Mark emails Chris in a frenzied loss of judgment and higher brain function at three in the morning, when Eduardo is snoring softly in the bedroom and Mark is having what feels like a panic attack on the sofa.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: you are well-adjusted, give me your wisdom

Eduardo laughs at babies, Chris. BABIES.

Fuck, I really like him, what am I supposed to do?

 

He falls fitfully asleep on the couch at around four, and wakes up to the horrendous sound of the coffee machine apparently building Skynet in the bakery downstairs, and has showered and taken his coffee with a morning smile from a busy Eduardo and is halfway to work before he remembers the email. He stops so suddenly out of sheer, unadultered _horror_ that he spills his coffee all down his front, and so he's swearing and making a beeline for the bathrooms at work when Chris appears out of nowhere and drags him into his office.

"Mark," he says, in this randomly terrifying tone of voice that Mark associates with the last days of finals and Chris on the brink of losing his shit about the music from the suite below, "Mark, what was that email about?"

There are not many conversations Mark finds himself wishing he could extract himself from, mostly because he's fully confident that if he says enough, the other person is bound to just fuck off eventually, but ones that start with Chris holding his elbow in a Vulcan grip and using his scary _if I fail this exam because of your dubious musical taste and apparently terrible hearing, I will find your porn and I will send it to your goddamn mother_ voice are ones that Mark tries to avoid if it's at all possible. 

Avoidance is not an option here, because Chris's face is doing complicated things and Mark's elbow really fucking hurts, so Mark just goes, "Wasn't it obvious?"

Something is twitching in Chris's temple.

"I was tired," Mark says, pulling his arm free. "Delete it. _I'll_ delete it."

Chris slams a hand against the door, and Mark stops short of grabbing the handle.

"Wow," he says, raising an eyebrow. "Okay then."

Chris says, "Explain."

Mark looks at the floor, and clears his throat, and generally does other things that might make this conversation stop. Chris just waits. Mark has always hated his patience.

"I," he says. "He."

He should resign as CEO right now. This is ridiculous. He goes for deflection, out of a complete lack of other options. "Why are you so angry?"

"It's my default emotion when people send me emails at three in the morning about their inability to be real human beings," Chris says, not moving his arm. "It's not real anger, but you wouldn't have this conversation if you thought there was any chance of escape, so I pulled out the big guns."

"You have no guns," says Mark.

"I am armed to the teeth," says Chris. "Try me."

Mark reaches for the door handle again; Chris actually bitch-slaps his hand away.

Mark stares at him. "You worry me," he says. "Aren't you supposed to be the normal one?"

"I am the normal one," Chris says. "Being forced to deal with you guys as my friends has made me really good at creative problem-solving."

"Problem solving with violence?" Mark asks.

Chris shrugs. "It’s proven effective with Dustin."

"Isn't that spousal abuse?"

"We are not married," Chris says, "and you're apparently the one with all the feelings, so stop trying to distract me and talk, Zuckerberg."

Mark tries, he really does, because despite the fact that he's red enough to be seen from space, he remembers what it felt like in the early hours of the morning, terrified out of his mind and feeling helplessly, irresolvably, inadequate, neither of which are things he particularly enjoyed.

He looks at his hands, and says, "I really like him."

Chris softens immediately, because he's always been able to tell when Mark is genuinely trying, and drops his arm from the door. "Okay," he says. "You like him."

"You can't say it," Mark says, at once, hot and flustered. "We are not doing this if you repeat anything I say to me."

Chris nods. Mark refuses to look up in case spontaneous human combustion is real and he provides the first proof out of sheer mortification. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, and thinks about Eduardo laughing at stupid videos and Eduardo fretful in sleep and Eduardo not talking about his father ever, and fervently wishes there was an answer book for human interaction, a code manual, if X then Y, because X is happening and Mark doesn't know what the fuck Y is supposed to be, or even if he's capable of doing it right, and he really wants to get it right, to _be_ right, for Eduardo. He's only wanted to be more than someone, before: now he wants to be _enough_.

Chris is just looking at him with this steady, understanding gaze, and Mark is prickling hot, and he just goes, fast like ripping off a band-aid, "I've never done this before. I don't know how to be in a relationship."

Chris says, "Okay."

Mark fidgets, and then he thinks, well, this is already about as humiliating as this conversation can possibly get, and there's a reason he emailed _Chris_ at three in the morning, and so he adds, "And - I don't want to do it - wrong."

There's a really, really long pause. Mark looks up, confusion edging out embarrassment.

"Chris?"

"Sometimes, Mark," Chris says, slowly, "you are a genuinely wonderful human being."

Mark fidgets.

"Of course," Chris continues, "other times you do make me want to beat you round the head with a filing cabinet, so I guess it evens out."

//

Mark resorts to email to finish that conversation, because there are reasons he invented a mode of communication that doesn't involve face-to-face contact, and one of those reasons is that there are just some things -- most things -- that Mark would prefer not to have to look at someone when he talks about.

This is one of those things.

 

to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: this conversation never happened

If there's something bothering Eduardo, do we need to talk about it? I can't do that. Does he expect me to do that? 

I just

I like him and I want him to be okay.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: where are my filing cabinets when I need them

He _is_ okay, you idiot.

We've all got things we don't like to talk about. You don't have to talk to him about it - just let him know you would do, if he wanted.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: seriously how do you know these things

How do I do that?

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: because I am a real person and not a code-writing facsimile of a sham, unlike some (you).

I don't know, you're the one sleeping with him.

Seriously, Mark, this is not beyond you, I promise.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: that use of brackets was really subtle, well done

I am not convinced.

 

from: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I am going back to work now. This is my last word on the subject.

Eduardo is not a delicate flower. He is a regular guy. We all have our baggage. 

JUST. TALK. TO. HIM.

and give me a raise, because _Jesus fucking Christ_. 

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: your face looks all squashed

what's up? I can see you through your wall.

because it's glass, not because I've developed x-ray vision.

although, hang on.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: false alarm

nope, no x-ray vision.

the drawer was slightly open.

what's up??? is it eduardo? can I help?

seriously though. if i can i will.

I AM JUST AS GOOD AT RELATIONSHIP ADVICE AS CHRIS, OKAY.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: the _drawer_ was _open_ , why did I hire you?

No. You are not. 

But thank you.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! X INFINITY

MARK DID YOU JUST TYPE THANK YOU

I KNOW YOU DID BECAUSE YOU SENT IT TO ME

EDUARDO HAS CHANGED YOU

I AM SO PROUD

YOU ARE DOING SO WELL MARK KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK :DDDDD

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: go away, Dustin

Dustin, go away.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com:  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: shan't

SAYING IT TWICE DOESN'T WORK MARK REMEMBER BEETLEJUICE?

obviously not. 

//

Despite what Chris might think, Mark has no idea how to start this conversation, or what to say when he does, so one night, leaning against Eduardo on the sofa as they're sort of idly, lazily, watching tv and Mark's pretending not to think about code, he just blurts, unprompted, "When I was little, I got trapped in the bathroom at school."

Eduardo turns to look down at him, a smile tugging at his mouth, like he doesn't know quite how Mark wants him to react. "Yeah?"

"It was recess," Mark says, "and I was six, and the doors to the bathrooms were too heavy for me to pull open, and one of the older kids left me in there and I couldn't get out."

"Okay?" says Eduardo. "You should know I need to see pictures of you as a six year old as soon as possible now, but I don't think that's where you're going with this story." He twines his hand in with Mark's, because he is that kind of person, because Mark is telling him something that Eduardo thinks might be a painful memory, and Eduardo wants to hold his hand through it. Which, okay, it wasn't one of the best moments of Mark's life, but that's not the point of this endeavor. He squeezes Eduardo's hand back anyway.

"I mean," Mark says, "someone came to find me when they realised I was missing, but I still - I had nightmares about it, afterwards, for a while." He keeps his eyes trained on the television. While this isn't as traumatic a memory as Eduardo's expression suggests, it's still not, like, a shining beacon of delight or anything, but again, not the point. Mark says, carefully, awkwardly, "And after FaceMash, people sent me notes in class to tell me I was a dick. And sometimes I dream about typos crashing the site. And - " Next to him, Eduardo has gone very still, like he's finally realised what Mark's doing. Mark is pretty sure he's gone, like, puce with embarrassment, because this is so far out of his comfort zone he might as well be in a synchronized swimming team, but he chokes back all his reticence and thinks about Eduardo shaking in his sleep, Eduardo's hand in his right there on the couch, and just gets it out. "And, I'm trying to - Wardo, you can tell me about it, if you want."

There is a very long silence, in which Mark can't look at Eduardo and is also busy trying to forget how much like a Reese Witherspoon movie he just sounded. He's also trying to forget that Dustin made him watch Legally Blonde, like, five times one weekend by forcibly holding him down during the blur of studying for midterms, but that's an ongoing trauma and not the relevant one right now.

He hears Eduardo let out a shaky breath. 

"All right," Eduardo says. "I'll tell you about it."

Mark tries not to panic, because this is, after all, what he is supposed to want. "Okay," he says, trying to arrange his face into something that hopefully looks supportive and encouraging and not just terrified and out of his depth. "Good."

Eduardo laughs, which is not what Mark was expecting, so he laughs sort of nervously back.

"Not right now, Mark," he says, smiling properly at him. "We don't have to do this all in one night."

"Oh thank god," Mark says, all on one breath. "Because I have no idea what I'm doing."

Eduardo is looking so fondly at him that Mark almost can't stand it. "I know," Eduardo says, amused. "It's like watching a dog walk on its hind legs."

"Shut up," says Mark, still hugely embarrassed by the whole thing. "I'm trying, okay."

"You really are," says Eduardo, and Mark kicks him in the shin, and Eduardo kicks him back. He's smiling; Mark thinks this has gone pretty well, considering. Eduardo says, "I know, okay? It's okay."

"Good," says Mark, again, sort of gruffly, and clears his throat. "Go get me some pie."

He's found the need for pie comes in swings and balances. First there comes need, then the need to never see a pie again as long as he lives, but pie always wins out in the end. 

Mark pokes Eduardo when he isn't getting up fast enough. 

Eduardo laughs again, and extricates himself from Mark's limbs, all shamelessly tangled up around him on the sofa. "God, you're so demanding."

"Shut up," says Mark. "Don't pretend you're not secretly my feeder."

Eduardo spreads his hands wide. "You caught me," he says. "One day soon you'll never be able to get off my sofa again."

Mark throws a cushion at him, and doesn't say, _that might not be too bad_.

//

Thanksgiving rolls around, and Mark can't bring himself to be away from the office twice in two months, so he tells his mom he'll be home for Hanukkah, and stays in California. Eduardo doesn't go to Miami because he says business is good -- which is it is, Mark can't deny, the shop has been busier than ever and Mark is falling back into the _no, not the pies, anything but the pies_ side of the pastry-lovers circle of torment -- but Eduardo tells him this like he's expecting Mark to call him out on something, and Mark frowns, but doesn't push it. Dustin and Chris have both gone to their respective family homes, and so they have their own little Thanksgiving in Eduardo's apartment. Eduardo cooks the turkey and most of the sides, and Mark stands about making cranberry sauce and disparaging, entirely unmeant, remarks. They drink wine from Brazil, which Mark says goes against the entire point of the day, and Eduardo tells him to shut up and embrace both sides of Eduardo's cultural heritage, and Mark just rolls his eyes and they clink glasses over the dinner table. 

There's candlelight and everything, because Eduardo is ridiculous, and afterwards they loll back on Eduardo's small couch and watch holiday specials of sitcoms until they start falling asleep. They have lazy, slow sex in Eduardo's bed, both of them really too full and too sleepy to fully commit to the idea but unwilling to get their hands off each other, and Mark comes almost peacefully, pressing inside Eduardo and quietly resting his head against Eduardo's shoulder, Eduardo's hand warm on his back, gently insistent, urging him on.

They fall asleep spooned around each other -- Mark is the big spoon -- and Mark is too tired to realise that this is the first time they've fallen asleep like this, rather than just woken up curled that way.

If Mark were a normal person, he thinks, looking back, this would have been the moment he realised how he felt. But Mark is Mark, and so instead of having any sort of revelation or epiphany or movie-friendly swellings of music in his head, he just throws an arm over Eduardo's waist, and Eduardo makes a sleepy noise of recognition and appreciation, reaching his hand up to twine in with Mark's fingers, and they both drift into sleep.

//

When Mark goes to work once everyone is back from the Thanksgiving break, he feels slightly green from the amount of leftover pie he's had. Dustin accosts him, and Mark is too vaguely nauseous to shrug him off effectively.

Dustin peers at him. "What's wrong with your face?"

"Pie," says Mark, too over-fed to avoid this conversation. "There is too much pie."

Dustin says, in this small, respectful voice, like this is something so awe-inspiring he can't give it volume, "There's still _pie_?"

"Don't say that word," Mark beseeches. "I will vomit on your shoes."

"If you vomit pie, I might not mind," Dustin says. Mark sits down in Dustin's chair and puts his head in his hands.

" _Please_ don't say that word," he says.

"Which word?"

"The p-word."

"Penis?"

Mark finds enough non-nauseated strength to glare at Dustin from between his fingers. 

"Why would you be saying that?" he says. "Let's assume there's already a moratorium on saying that."

"You weren't clear."

"I'm always clear."

"You are _murky_."

"Pie," Mark groans. "Don't say _pie_."

Dustin sits down on the edge of his desk, pulling his legs up so his feet dangle off the floor. 

"You have a boyfriend who bakes you stuff," he says. "I am a nice person with many good qualities and yet I am single, can't cook and will eventually starve to death alone in my apartment. How is this fair?"

"What happened with the girl from the bar?"

"That was a month ago," Dustin says. "Like sands through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives - "

" _Dustin_."

Dustin shrugs. "It didn't work out."

"I suppose I should say I'm sorry," Mark offers, but Dustin doesn't look too broken up about this, so he doesn't give it too much real feeling.

"You should," says Dustin. " _She_ was a good cook."

"Maybe you should just start going to cooking classes in your free time," Mark says. "Then you wouldn't need to validate yourself with other people's food."

"I am not a teenage girl," says Dustin, and Mark looks up from his hands again to give him an incredulous eyebrow raise.

" _Legally Blonde_ ," he says, because this is a pain that will not ease, and Dustin shoves a dramatic, emphatic finger in his face.

"I reject your negativity," he declares. "That film has valuable life lessons to teach."

"Yeah," says Mark. "About _perms_."

"I _knew_ you liked it really!" Dustin crows, and Mark puts his head back down again.

"Alternatively," Mark says, mostly to get off the topic of terrifying romantic comedies, "you could just proposition someone you already _know_ can cook."

Dustin considers this. He picks up a box of paperclips from his desk and lobs it across the office at Chris, who is leaning over an intern's desk and having some earnest, helpful conversation with them. Chris is like that. He has earnest conversations with interns. Mark doesn't have any conversations with interns, because apparently he scares them, which, okay, maybe he does encourage that a little bit, but only because then they're not set up for disappointment when they want to talk to the youngest billionaire in the world and they get distracted, code-hungry, red-eyed, under-caffeinated Mark. He's doing them a favour by steering clear. Chris does not see things this way.

The box of paperclips bounces off the back of Chris's head, because, irritatingly, Dustin has always had perfect aim when he's wanted to. 

The interns like Dustin, too.

"Oi, Chris!" Dustin shouts, and Chris, back stiffening, turns round with the air of a man facing down inevitability with extremely bad grace. He seems aggrieved rather than startled; Mark thinks that's pretty much Chris all over.

"What, Dustin?"

Dustin doesn't bother to lower his voice. "If you were my boyfriend, would you bake me stuff?"

"No," says Chris, immediately, and turns back to the intern.

Dustin turns back to Mark, heaving a huge, exaggerated sigh.

" _Boyfriend_?" says Mark.

Dustin shrugs. "Hey, you're doing the guy thing, Chris is doing the guy thing, I figure maybe I'm missing out on something."

At this point, one of the human resources staff walks past, the one that wears unnecessarily tight sweaters all the time like she thinks she's in Mad Men, and Dustin's head actually turns to watch her every step of the way. Mark will admit she's not, like, a troll, but he doesn't tend to think about his employees like that. That's not what they're there for.

"Yeah," says Mark. "Hey, Dustin. Your hetero is showing."

Dustin grins. "Seriously though," he says, "I'd totally go gay for cake. Not for pay, though, I have some standards."

"Your standards worry me," Mark tells him. 

"My standards are awesome," Dustin says. "Chris could cook me feasts. I would never be hungry again!"

Mark says, "You'd go gay for Chris?"

"Dude," says Dustin. "Chris is a fucking awesome cook, remember?"

Admittedly, if it hadn't been for Chris that first summer in Palo Alto - and, okay, a lot of the time after that - there is a good chance Mark might have actually gotten scurvy, but - 

"Eduardo's better," Mark says, not really thinking that all the way through, and then, preemptively, when Dustin's face instantly lights up, "Fuck off."

Dustin gives Mark this look like he has taken a puppy away from him. "You are so sweet it is hurting my teeth," he says, which is definitely the first time anyone has ever called Mark _sweet_ before. 

"You are so over-invested in this that it is hurting my soul," Mark says back.

//

It's not really something Mark's ever really given much thought to before, the idea of being in love. He sort of assumes it's probably not everything the movies promise, because, after all, if he can make it to his mid-twenties without feeling it, it's probably not that big a deal. He's seen Dustin throw himself over the arm of the sofa in their Harvard suite, pining dramatically for some girl who handed him back his pen in the library when he dropped it at her feet, or the girl in Mark's art history class who was also in Dustin's gen ed class and who Dustin had decided was his soulmate and destined to bear his children, but, like, even Mark knew that wasn't real love, just the closest approximation an infatuated college boy could get. He's never really thought it would apply to him, at least not yet, mostly because he's never broken away from his computer long enough to maintain that sort of connection with someone, and, also, the last time he was in an actual relationship with someone, she called him an asshole and left him sitting alone in a bar, so.

And it's not like Mark has any illusions about his desirability, either. He knows the most meaningful relationship in his life is with a website. He knows he's always going to prioritize code over companionship. He knows he says things that turn people away, okay, he's not stupid. But then - and this is the part Mark is really, really having trouble with - Eduardo doesn't seem to mind.

Sometimes, when Mark looks at him, it's like an actual ache. And, right, that's absolutely ridiculous, and far too chick flick for words, and it makes Mark wire in so fast his keyboard should probably catch fire, but there's nothing he can do about it. It's just what happens. And Mark doesn't know if it's love, because he doesn't know what that feels like, but it's definitely _something_.

"You okay?" Eduardo asks him one evening, when Mark has been staring into the middle distance in a vague sort of feelings-related panic for an apparently noticeable amount of time. "Hey, Mark. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," says Mark, snapping back into the room, looking at Eduardo with his stupid big concerned eyes and his stupid mouth and his stupid, stupid hair. "Yeah, I'm okay, let's watch the movie."

Eduardo doesn't look convinced, but Mark smiles at him, and Eduardo smiles back like he can't help it, which is so exactly how Mark feels that it makes him have to swallow past his suddenly dry throat. 

"All right," says Eduardo, getting up from the couch to flick on the dvd player, "but this is the last time I am watching The Matrix. Next time I get to pick."

"Pfff," says Mark, "I am not watching Little Miss Sunshine again, Wardo. I get it. Everyone's a special, special snowflake. It doesn't matter how many times you tell me, I will never feel all the feelings about it, okay?"

"You are heartless," says Eduardo, coming to sit back down. 

Mark shrugs, and Eduardo puts an arm around his shoulders as Trinity ninja-kicks her way through the opening of the movie, and Mark shifts in closer to him without thinking, and tries to just stop over-analyzing.

Eduardo falls asleep halfway through the film, because he gets up at stupid hours of the day and works on his feet for the rest of it, and Mark mutes the tv and reaches for his laptop, and starts fiddling around with the photo album layout he's still not happy with, but he stops, after a minute, because Eduardo snuffles in his sleep, and presses his face closer against Mark's neck, and Mark has to stop coding, just for a second, because he has to push the hair back off Eduardo's forehead in case it dangles in his eyes and wakes him up.

And, whatever this is, it's _terrifying_. Mark starts to code hard, jittery, blocking everything else out until Eduardo stirs, sometime around one, but then, even with his pulse racing, he hits CTRL+S, and lets Eduardo pull him sleepily by the wrist to bed.

//

The party does eventually happen, but it's been long enough that it becomes a Pick Your Own Winter Event thing rather than a _celebration of fall_ , or whatever it was that Dustin was pushing for a couple of months back. 

Eduardo does cater it, alongside the regular buffet tables of chips and dips and other generic party food that Mark has his assistant provide. Eduardo brings along cupcakes with white and blue frosting, and sugar cookies iced background white with Eduardo's loopy, messy handwriting spelling out in black icing whirls, _what's on your mind?_ Mark stares down at all this and then stares at Eduardo, wide-eyed, and Eduardo grins up at him from where he's crouching down to unpack the bakery boxes, and something clutches in Mark's chest. He leans down to kiss him, right there in front of everyone on the main floor, and Eduardo makes a surprised, pleased, sound, and kisses him back.

By the first hour of people abandoning their desks and flocking to the punch bowl, all the cupcakes are gone. Dustin is hovering protectively around the cookies. 

"They're not just for you," Mark says, smirking, and Dustin says, "I know," sounding sad and aggrieved, and Mark leaves him alone to guard them like them like a maternal dinosaur or whatever it is Dustin thinks he's doing. 

Chris and Eduardo have been talking for a while, on the other side of the room, while Mark has been attempting to enter into the spirit of the thing to show willing and also dropping in and out of his office, running early end of year diagnostics. He shoots glances at them occasionally, looking at Chris holding an incredibly spiked cup of punch and grinning, and Eduardo throwing his head back to laugh at something Chris has said, unreserved. Mark thinks it should be strange, to see Eduardo here in the Facebook offices, but it's not. It feels good. Chris says something else, and Eduardo turns to look at Mark, teasing, giddy, and Mark goes back into his office, burning hot. 

He thinks about the beginning of August, grumpy and stagnant and seeing Eduardo walk out of the bakery kitchen for the first time, friendly, oven-gloves over his shoulder. He thinks about Eduardo pressing him down against his kitchen floor and getting him off without even undoing his jeans, about Eduardo sweat-wrecked and pleading on Mark's couch, about Eduardo touching the back of his hand to Mark's forehead and taking him to bed, gentle, even though Mark had been withdrawn and on edge. He thinks about Eduardo falling asleep against him on the sofa, about Eduardo kissing him sleepily on Thanksgiving night. He feels funny, dizzy, and he wires in for a bit, but it doesn't go away.

He goes back out to the party -- there are now no more cookies, and Dustin is looking green but content in the corner, talking to the tight-sweater girl from HR -- and looks over at Eduardo. He's lit up, animated, telling Chris some story that involves increasingly dramatic hand gestures, and it makes Mark smile, just looking at him.

One of the interns goes over and says something apparently admiring about the cupcakes, and Eduardo goes a little pink, and thanks them, smiling. He's standing by the big Facebook Wall, all the marker pen notes, and it's like -- it's like the two most important things in Mark's life, together, unexpected and amazing. Mark hasn't touched the punch, but he feels overwhelmed.

And, abruptly, Mark can't go one more minute without blowing Eduardo, which is sort of unfortunate seeing as they're in company. Mark doesn't have the best manners, he's been told, but he's pretty sure you shouldn't fellate your boyfriend in the middle of the office party.

He goes over to where Chris and Eduardo are still having their worryingly lengthy conversation and just interrupts them. Chris will get over it.

"I need Wardo for a second," he says, and Chris smiles sort of long-sufferingly and Eduardo blinks at him, but follows Mark over to the edge of the office when he inclines his head like _follow me, okay_. Once they're sufficiently out of the way, Mark grabs Eduardo by the hand and leads him into the second floor bathrooms, and when Eduardo turns to him with an eyebrow raised like he knows exactly what Mark's thinking, Mark says, "Shut up," and shoves him into a stall, locking the door behind them.

"Mark," says Eduardo, on a groan, when Mark runs his palm down Eduardo's side, hard, "we can't - there's a party out there - we can't."

Mark presses up against Eduardo to bite just behind his ear in the way that always makes Eduardo shiver, and works his hand in between them to unzip Eduardo's pants. The noise of the fly is like punctuation between Eduardo's hesitation and his want.

"Fuck," he says, as Mark dips his hand just under the waistband of Eduardo's boxers, his pupils blown already, "Mark, fuck - we can't - here -"

Mark looks him straight in the eye. "If I say we can, we can," he says, firmly. 

Eduardo bucks his hips up when Mark doesn't move his hand, but he says, "Someone could come in," which is pretty hypocritical for someone who blew Mark in a shop with the door open.

"Fuck it," says Mark. "I'm CEO, bitch," and he drops to his knees.

He gets Wardo off in under five minutes, easily, mouthing at him through his boxers until he whimpers, and then just swallowing him down. Eduardo bites his hand to keep from being too loud, but the stall door creaks when he can't keep his hips still. Someone comes in when Eduardo is flushed red and panting, but Mark doesn't stop, and Eduardo's eyes almost roll back in his head with the effort of staying quiet. When the bathroom door swings shut again, Mark pulls off to kiss the juncture between Eduardo's hip and thigh and Eduardo says, shaky and desperate, "Mark, fuck, please," and Mark sucks him back down until he comes.

Mark will never understand this particular piece of timing, and he will only tell Eduardo about it much, much later, but apparently everything important in Mark's life is destined to have less than auspicious beginnings - like the first stir of Facebook, its first flicker of life when Mark was angry and defensive in the Porc's fucking bike room - because right here, on his knees in a toilet cubicle in the Facebook offices, looking up at Eduardo sweaty and wrecked and trying to catch his breath, right here, all the funny, dizzy feeling from earlier clicks into place. 

Mark has to catch his breath too, because this is when he finally realises he's maybe more than a little bit in love.

//

Eduardo's flight home for Hanukkah is the following morning, Mark's not till the day after, and Mark waits with him outside the bakery until his taxi turns up.

"So," Mark says, jamming his hands in his pockets. 

Eduardo has one wheeled suitcase and a shoulder bag. He's also wearing another fucking suit, obviously, because when _Mark_ gets a cross-country flight, the first thing on his mind is looking smart for the in-flight movie and the overly solicitous flight-attendants. He's rummaging through a pocket of the shoulder bag, distracted. Mark sighs.

"Wardo," he says. "You packed everything. I know, because I was there when you packed it, and I was also there when you repacked it, and when you packed it _again_ to check it against the list you made the second time round. Barring, like, freakish rips in the time-space continuum opening up in that thing, I'm fairly sure you've got everything in there."

Eduardo gives him a Look of the kind that should be shot over the tops of glasses, and Mark sighs again, and relents.

"What the hell can you be looking for?" Okay, so Mark's version of relenting is maybe a little more brusque than most. Sue him.

"Would you shut up for a minute?" Eduardo says, only half joking, still moving stuff around in his bag, frowning.

"God, Wardo, the holidays really make you bossy."

"Mark."

"What?"

Eduardo looks - something. Mark can't decipher it, so he just curls his fingers around the insides of his jean pockets and watches Eduardo shift his weight awkwardly, and doesn't think about how maybe he's being deliberately difficult because Eduardo's about to fly 3000 miles away from him, because that would be ridiculous, and Mark isn't that type of person. 

"Um," says Eduardo, and Mark notices he's turning slowly pink, creeping up out of his starched white shirt collar. 

"Wardo?" 

"I think you should take this," Eduardo says, and he takes hold of Mark's hand and presses something into it, closing his fingers around Mark's. Mark tries to feel the thing in his hand with the tips of his fingers, pressed into a fist by Eduardo's.

It's a key. 

Mark looks up, wide-eyed. He doesn't know what - what should he - he's thinking in fragments, hesitant keystrokes, and he doesn't say anything, in case it comes out like that too. He doesn't want Eduardo to think he's hesitant about him. He's really, really not.

Eduardo rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "I mean," he says. "You're leaving later than I am, so you could check on the place for me. Or, if you wanted somewhere closer to sleep, if you were busy at work before you went home."

Mark is still just staring.

"Or, I don't know," Eduardo says, looking somewhere near Mark's feet. Mark wants Eduardo to look at him, because he has less than no chance of understanding what Eduardo's trying to say if he's saying it to Mark's shoes. He knows what he _thinks_ Eduardo is saying, but he doesn't want to be wrong. He doesn't think he's wrong, but then, he rarely does. Chris tells him this is a problem. Mark thinks it's a boon.

"I just thought," Eduardo finishes, "I just - wanted you to have it."

He looks up. Mark is right. Something clutches in his chest, ridiculously, and Eduardo gives him this soft little smile, like Mark's expression is telling him all he needs to know. Which is terrifying, because no-one knows Mark like that, but it is admittedly also really useful, because Mark doesn't know if he's capable of saying anything aloud right now. 

Instead, helpless, he gets his other hand around Eduardo's hip and pulls him in, and kisses him right there in the street. The taxi sweeps around the corner just as Eduardo makes a faint, happy sound and brings his hand up to cup Mark's cheek, and Mark hates the taxi driver, and holidays, and Miami, and this new, strange feeling of not having anything to say.

Eduardo pulls away, grinning bashfully at his suitcase as he wheels it to the edge of the sidewalk to load it into the trunk, and Mark uncurls his fingers and looks at the key on his palm.

He wants to say it, but he doesn't quite know how. He wishes he could code it out in the space between them, type out the right sequence to let Eduardo know how tight his chest feels when he turns the key over in his hand, the way he feels for the first time like he's got something he doesn't need to prove to anyone, and the contradictory way he wants to kiss Eduardo in front of the whole fucking world. Eduardo pauses with his hand on the taxi door, and Mark wants to slam the door shut and pull Eduardo inside and keep him there, just the two of them and maybe a laptop for later when Mark inevitably gets, like, keyboard-withdrawal, because Miami is really far away and Eduardo _gave him a key_.

Mark knows the words he could say here, but they don't seem like enough.

Instead, he says, "Have a good trip." He can practically feel Chris despairing of him.

He watches Eduardo's taxi until it pulls out of sight, and it makes him feel like a gigantic loser, but then he remembers their first date, that night in the bar, and Eduardo standing still on the sidewalk and looking after Mark's taxi as it pulled away down the street, and he wonders, in a sudden, hot, burst, whether Eduardo has felt like this the whole time.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, which is probably a good thing, because the way Mark's thoughts have been going, he's probably going to spontaneously switch gender right there on the street and then have to tell Chris he has to draft the most awkward press release of his life, and then he will be dead, because Chris would probably just kill him.

Anyway.

_stop being a sad panda now wardo has gone_ , Dustin has sent, in a remarkable and/or petrifying display of incredibly on-the-nose timing. _HALO NIGHT TONITE, NO EXCUSES._

_You just spelt night in two different ways_ , Mark sends. _And I'm not a sad panda._

_you are the saddest panda_ , comes the reply. _one of the sad lonely pandas that wont mate with anyone. like wardo is your bamboo and you have eaten him all up._

Then: _ew ew ew ew ew mental images i hate you_

_I didn't say anything_ , Mark points out.

_BECAUSE YOUR MOUTH WAS FULL OF WARDO BAMBOO_ , Dustin sends. _DUDE PLEASE JUST COME PLAY HALO SO I CAN GET REALLY DRUNK AND STOP THINKING HORRIBLE ZOO WARPING THOUGHTS._

Mark is buying beer to take over when his phone goes again - 

_YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON WHO HAS RUINED PANDAS FOREVER_

\- and again, when he's just got to Dustin's street - 

_WHAT HAVE PANDAS EVER DONE TO YOU_

\- and again just as Dustin opens the door to Mark's knock.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Dustin," Mark says, irritably, as Dustin falls on the beer in Mark's hand like some drowning man/lifebelt cliché. "I'm right here, stop fucking texting me about zoo animals."

Dustin has poured half a beer down his throat before he answers. "That one wasn't me," he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and padding back through to the living room in his socks. "I am too horrified to type any more. Plus, I am busy shooting Chris."

Mark has only been in the living room for like a minute, and already he can see that Chris's little pixilated character is winning spectacularly.

Dustin follows his gaze to the tv set. "I'm going to make a last minute comeback," he insists. "Like a phoenix, only without the whole burning part first."

Chris raises a hand to Mark, eyes still on the tv screen, like _I am going to talk to you about your feelings like the good friend I am but right now I am kicking Dustin's ass, sorry about that, your emotions have waited this long to make themselves a part of your life, they can wait another ten minutes for me to make Dustin cry like a girl_. Mark sits ungracefully down on the sofa, and checks his phone.

_just taking off_ , it says. _I miss you._

Mark checks to make sure Dustin is definitely completely absorbed in thinking he's bad-ass and completely failing to notice Chris's game character sneaking up behind him with a machine gun before he types back his reply.

_I miss you too_ , he says, because it's easy to be honest when he's typing, because code doesn't lie and Mark is fucking awesome at code. 

_:)_ Eduardo sends, and Mark's actual heart does something painful and flippy, and he looks up to see Dustin grinning at him, unbelievably charmed. 

"It's okay, Marky," he says. "Bamboo will be back soon."

Mark smacks him round the head with the unopened bottle of beer by his feet, and Chris throws his arms in the air with a cry of victory as there's a death wail from the television, and Dustin slides dramatically off the couch to his knees in loud, melodramatic despair, and Mark slides his fingertips into the top of his jeans pocket like muscle memory, reaching for the brush of a folded napkin, and curls his fingers around the key, metal warm from being next to his body, and smiles.


	3. Chapter 3

iii.

Mark gets back from New York the same day Eduardo is due in, and he goes to Eduardo's apartment rather than his own house, reveling in not having anyone talking at him, or near him, or about him, unlike every waking moment he's endured for the past nine days.

He hesitated before he gave the address to the taxi driver when he emerged flight-rumpled and grumpy from the airport, wanting his laptop and hating all small children, but then he thought, fuck it, Eduardo gave him a key. There's no point in giving someone a key if they're not supposed to use it. It'd be like giving someone a box and expecting them not to open it, or like only inviting someone into a bike room and expecting them not to bite back. 

Admittedly he does feel a little bit like he's breaking in when he turns the key in the door next to the shuttered up windows, especially because it's all dark inside the bakery -- obviously, because Eduardo hasn't been down there to turn the lights on or open the shutters or smile until a flock of animated birds flick the light switch or whatever alchemy he works in the mornings that makes the place look welcoming and appealing at hours of the day when only pillows should hold any level of attraction -- but he's used to the dark, and he knows where all the things he could bump into are, and so if he were a burglar, he'd probably be one of the larceny intelligentsia. He disarms the alarm in the dark, locks the door behind him because he is a responsible adult, thank you, Chris, he knows not to leave _someone else's door_ unlocked, and goes upstairs.

The weird thing about it is that it doesn't feel weird, wandering into Eduardo's apartment by himself, poking through Eduardo's fridge in the hopes that one of them left beer in there, going barefoot into the living room and putting his feet up on the coffee table. Admittedly Mark is not the world champion at noticing when he _should_ feel weird, but - he has a key. He knows the trick to coax another couple minutes of hot water out of the shower when it first starts running cold. He knows how to kick the bottom of the fridge door to make it open when it sticks sometimes. He's spent more time here over the last few months than he has in his own house, and it's sort of great, actually, that he does have a key now, because that has to make it official: he's not just a guest.

It's cold enough in the apartment that Mark notices it, and he's run through snow in flip-flops before. The heat's not on, and he goes looking for the control, which is apparently in another dimension, because it does not reveal itself to him in any of the rooms. There are not many rooms. It is a small apartment. Mark has a key but apparently he does not have eyes. He swears, and goes into the bedroom to appropriate one of Eduardo's ridiculously oversized sweaters, the ones he wears when he's tired and cold even though Mark is a perfectly comfortable temperature in just his hoodie and a seasonally inappropriate pair of shorts, and he heads to the dresser, yanks twice on the handle of the second drawer down (that sticks too), and --

\-- and it's full of his own clothes.

Mark blinks. Sure, he remembers Eduardo putting a couple of his hoodies in there when they'd ended up dubiously stained and Eduardo had peeled them off over Mark's head and had not looked even the slightest bit apologetic about coming all over Mark's clothes but had offered to put them through the wash for him, and then told Mark they were in the dresser when he wanted them. He also remembers Eduardo bullying him into bringing a few pairs of jeans over, sweats, a couple of tees -- "You cannot keep going to work in the same clothes, Mark, I refuse to allow it, you are the CEO, at least have the _option_ of a second hoodie here." -- and in _theory_ he was aware that this drawer now contained entirely his own clothing, but in practice - oh, god, is it actually possible Mark can have moved in without noticing it?

He closes the drawer and grabs one of Eduardo's stupid sweaters from the next drawer down, and goes into the bathroom. His toothbrush is next to Eduardo's on the sink.

He goes back into the kitchen, mildly alarmed, and next to the scary kinds of health-conscious soft drinks (what the fuck is _burdock_?), there are a few bottles of Mark's favourite beer. Mark did not buy them. He hasn't questioned it when Eduardo has passed him a bottle now and then, but, okay, now he is remembering a conversation in which Eduardo shrugged and said _I prefer Blue Moon_ and the bottles in the fridge that Mark can't look away from are Sam Adams and Mark knows with his staggering intellect that Blue Moon is not Sam Adams.

So he sort of lives here. Okay. How is he the only person in the world who can be living with someone and _not know it_? Is it even possible to be living with someone when you still have your own house, or is that a different thing? Is there such a thing as _mostly_ living with someone? Mark scowls down at his feet, and goes and codes, because code gives him questions he can answer, and the rest of his life is devolving into stupidity around his ears. 

Then he has to stop coding, because he's tired and thirsty, and his hands are cold even though the rest of him is warm in Eduardo's gigantic sweater, and none of these things are answering his stupid living arrangement question. 

He texts Chris.

_do I live with Eduardo?_

_surprisingly I do not have this information_ , Chris texts back, _as I am not actually you. how the fuck do you not know where you live??_

Chris has a good point.

_I hate you_ , Mark informs him, childishly, and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

He goes and gets one of the beers from the fridge, and pulls the comforter over his legs on the couch, and codes again until it starts to get dusky outside, relaxing line by line, unwinding from family and two unexpected life upheavals in as many weeks. Seriously, Mark has spent a good twenty something years perfectly happy with his work and his website and his life in general, and then all of a sudden, bam, you're in love, smash, you're accidently living with someone, thwap, have another fucking beer and stop thinking about this so much.

He's tired enough that he keeps mis-pressing keys, catching two at once, or blanking suddenly halfway through a line, so he just saves what he's got and takes a break. He actually ends up spending his evening flicking through one of Eduardo's photo albums while the sun goes slowly down outside. He figures that if Eduardo gave him a key, it's definitely okay for him to pry a little - and, also, he can bring the Harvard network down so he can fucking well figure out how to crack the intense security system of a _closed drawer_.

He flips past pictures of people he doesn't know but thinks must be Eduardo's family, the woman Mark thinks is Eduardo's mother, who is rake-thin and wide-mouthed, smiling in every single picture, and then Eduardo's father with his arm around her waist, who looks stern, but not unapproachable. He finds what he's really looking for a few pages in, when there's a picture of Eduardo on a beach so bright that the sand is almost painful to look at even in the photograph, wearing trunks and nothing else, smiling so hard his face is almost creased in half with it and running a hand through his wet hair, clearly straight out of the sea. Mark doesn't want to know who's taking this picture, doesn't really care. He stares at it until his mouth goes dry, and then he slides it out of the album and into his pocket. 

It's possible that the same people who would leave that hypothetical box closed would also have some issues with Mark's ideas of personal boundaries, but he couldn't really give a fuck. 

He hears the door downstairs bang shut at about nine that night, when he's having a second attempt at fixing the typo-filled code, and then, after an amount of time that is clearly Eduardo noticing the alarm already disabled, he hears, "Mark?" and his chest does something stupid and unnecessarily constrictive, like he's not heard Eduardo's voice on the phone for the last few nights, like they've been apart for much longer than _under two weeks_ , Jesus Christ, what has even happened to Mark? 

"No," he shouts back, listening to Eduardo's footsteps on the stairs, "I'm a terrifying robber and I'm here to steal all your cake."

There's a scuffling at the lock of the apartment door at the top of the staircase, and Eduardo says, warm, meters away, "Dustin, is that you?"

"Fuck off," Mark says, and then the front door opens and Eduardo walks in.

Mark had not really thought this was possible, but Eduardo actually looks more attractive than he remembers. He's got a suit on, but it's wrinkled from the flight, and he looks like he hasn't slept since take-off, or maybe before then, but he's still the best-looking thing Mark has ever seen, which is fantastically unfair. Mark does not look like that after plane journeys, or, actually, ever.

Eduardo looks mildly horrified when he notices the photo album open on the coffee table in front of Mark, but it's tempered by his smile, the way he walks in and sees Mark sitting in his apartment with his feet up on the furniture and just _smiles_ , like he's been holding his breath and Mark is the surface of the water. 

Mark is obviously more tired than he thought if he's thinking things like that. Fucking similes.

"Hello," Eduardo says, still with that wide, first breath smile, and Mark shoves his laptop to one side with suddenly shaking hands and gets to his feet, and Eduardo steps forward and hasn't even put his bags down before he reaches out to pull Mark in.

"Hello," Mark says, after a minute, when they both remember that air is necessary to their continued survival, and Eduardo pulls back to press his forehead against Mark's and pant happily near his mouth. "How was your flight?"

Eduardo laughs at him, and Mark has his hands all over Eduardo, on his back, on his ribs, feeling the creases in his suit, and he laughs back.

Mark had not expected to miss him this much. 

"I missed you so much more than I wanted to," he says, lulled into honesty by the smell of Eduardo's skin, warm, a little stale from the plane. Mark is not unobservant, olefactorily or otherwise, so of course he's _noticed_ how Eduardo smells, it's just - okay, so Mark spends a lot of time thinking about things in groups, like line breaks for memory, for cross-referencing, but Eduardo refuses to be taken apart. Mark can't separate out individual aspects of him, like, oh: I like his smile, or, oh: I don't even mind his horrible morning breath: when he thinks about Eduardo, he thinks about all of him, and that is what he has missed. All of him. Just, oh: Eduardo.

Eduardo laughs, ruffling Mark's hair. Mark doesn't even mind that much either, that is how ruined he has become. "Thank you," he says. "I think."

"I mean," says Mark, tired and nonsensical, liking Eduardo's palm open against the back of his neck, "I missed your smell."

"Are you saying I smell?" Eduardo teases, running his fingers through the curls at the nape of Mark's neck, and Mark grumbles, and shivers a bit, and says, "No, Wardo, don't be facetious," and Eduardo says, "I'm not, I'm not, just - " and leans down to angle his mouth up under Mark's grumpily dipped chin and kisses him again.

"How was your trip?" Mark asks, when they next break apart, but he doesn't really need to, can see it in the way Eduardo shoulders off his bag and rolls out his neck, like the last few days have mostly been one long tension headache. Mark gets that there's something with his father, he gets that, but he can't _believe_ it: he genuinely cannot believe that there is someone who can look at Eduardo, and think he is worth anything less than - than fucking everything, okay, Mark is not going to let dignity or, like, masculine reserve get in the way of that particular thought.

He can't get it out, though, so instead, he says, sitting down on the couch, pulling his laptop back towards him, "You should come to New York some time."

Eduardo sits down next to him. "Yeah?" he says, in this soft little voice. Mark refuses to look up from his screen, doesn't trust himself to get this right if he does.

"Yeah," he says, and then he swallows, and his hands are shaking slightly on his keyboard, because apparently he can code rings round basically anyone but he cannot have this conversation without getting damp palms and a dry throat. He shrugs. "My mom said it would be nice to meet you," he says, by way of getting onto marginally safer ground, and Eduardo leans in and kisses him on the neck, nuzzling up behind Mark's ear.

"I'd love to," he says, like he's seen straight through Mark's ridiculous inability to talk about his feelings. "Thank you."

Mark inhales again, big and unexpected, and leans his head down to breathe against Eduardo's shoulder. 

As nice as breathing Eduardo in is, right now it's mostly just reminding Mark that he hasn't showered since the night before, and there's been a coast to coast plane trip in his life since then. 

"Fuck," he says, "I need to shower."

Eduardo holds onto his hoodie sleeve when he tries to stand up again, looking bone tired and reluctant to get up, but Mark reaches down for the sleeve of his crumpled suit and says, "Come with me?" and Eduardo gets to his feet gratifyingly quickly.

That is not the only thing Eduardo does gratifyingly quickly in the next half an hour, and Mark tells him so when they're sprawled out over the bed, half toweled dry and half sweat wet again.

"Shut up," says Eduardo, as Mark pants and feels a bit like a champion, "I really missed you."

"Evidently," says Mark, in the closest thing to a drawl he can manage, and Eduardo rolls onto his side so he can slap a hand down in protest on Mark's chest, just hard enough to hurt. 

Mark says, "Ow, what the hell," in this entirely faked protest, but Eduardo just buries his face against the side of Mark's neck and says, "Shh, sleeping now," and Mark quietens down, dragging a tee and his boxers back on. It's too cold for him to sleep without them.

He nudges Eduardo with his foot after a second, pulling the duvet up over them both, and demands that he at least put some boxers on, and Eduardo tells him in a sleepy, unequivocal sort of way that he will do no such thing, and Mark will have to like it.

Mark thinks that last part was sort of a given, but he falls asleep before he lets Eduardo know.

//

Mark swims awake when the light coming in through the curtains is closer to early afternoon than late morning, and he makes a disgruntled noise, and throws an arm over his eyes in protest. From behind his elbow, he hears Eduardo laugh.

Mark peels his arm off his face and turns his head on the pillow. Eduardo is smiling morning-soft at him from the other side of the bed, and when he sees Mark looking back, he ducks his head down to nuzzle against Mark's shoulder.

At no point in Mark's life before he met Eduardo had he ever really considered that something like this might happen to him. Eduardo is still pink-cheeked from sleep, and he's warm against Mark's side, bare chest pressed against Mark's ribs through Mark's sleep-warm tee, and he has this sweet little smile that makes Mark think of Chris saying, _you looked gentle_.

Mark sort of understands what that means now, looking at Eduardo and the curve of his dry mouth in the first few moments of the day. 

This is the sort of nonsense Mark only allows himself to get away with when he's just woken up, has not yet showered away new dawn vulnerabilities. 

"Ugh," says Mark, mostly so he can stop hearing himself think horrible Harlequin novel type things and start feeling like an actual person again, "go away. Your face is giving me diabetes."

Eduardo laughs sleepily against Mark's shoulder. "It's Sunday," he says, slightly fuzzily, like he's only half awake. "I don't have to get up on Sundays."

"Websites never sleep," says Mark. "That's why my job is so much better than yours."

Eduardo punches him gently on his side, a brush of knuckles against ribs. It shouldn't make Mark shiver hot, but it does.

"I have to get up," he says, not getting up.

"Mmph," says Eduardo, like he's falling asleep again. "Don't."

"But," says Mark, still not moving, "I have to."

"Don't," Eduardo says again, drowsy and slurred. "I don't want you to."

Mark turns his neck to look at him, all ridiculous bed hair tickling Mark's jaw and morning breath against Mark's side, and thinks, slightly surprised, _I don't want to either_.

//

When he eventually does get up and go into work, because he's been away for nine days and it's making him physically antsy not to have been there himself despite the fact that he's right in the fucking centre of the loop at all times, thanks to an incredibly maintained email-checking paranoia, he still checks his phone to see if Eduardo's woken up again yet just before he opens up his laptop.

_bring back eggs_ , Eduardo has sent, having apparently gotten up and showered and completed a forensic examination of the empty fridge in the time it has taken Mark to slug back a coffee and shuffle his way to the office. _I'll make omelettes tonight_.

Mark has never felt so domestic in his life, and he's not even the one cooking.

He hesitates for a second, checking for suspicious Dustin-shapes hidden around his office, in case Dustin can somehow sense when Mark is about to do something he doesn't want anyone to see and then just turn up like whatever the emotional equivalent of a cock-block is, and then types out a reply.

_go back to sleep. back soon. m._

_the bed's cold without you in it :(_

_that is what the duvet is for_ , Mark the eternal romantic sends back, and Eduardo goes, _i forget because i get it so rarely. AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT. (not mine)._

It is simultaneously nauseating and amazing, what has happened to Mark's life now Eduardo is in it. 

He checks his watch, and opens up his laptop, and starts working, only to be interrupted maybe only an hour later by Dustin bursting into his office.

" _Olá, minha princesa_!" calls Dustin, as the door ricochets off the far wall and Mark startles out of his concentration. "Have you missed me? I have missed you, my sweet baker-banging friend."

If Mark had missed Dustin, it is safe to say he cannot envisage this ever being a possibility again.

"No," he says, "I've really not." Dustin pulls a ludicrously fake hurt face while Mark continues, "And how do you know Portuguese?"

Dustin shrugs, coming over to perch on Mark's desk despite Mark's narrow-eyed glare of deterrence. "Babelfish."

"Why?" Mark asks, and then instantly regrets it.

"Because I am single and languages are sexy," Dustin says. "As well you should know, Mr I'm-fucking-a-hot-Brazilian."

"Your fixation on my sex life is truly alarming."

"That's just it," Dustin says, jabbing him in the chest. "You have a sex life. And with Eduardo, who I think even the blind and deaf could agree does not have to be under the sea to be twenty leagues hotter than you."

Mark pries Dustin's finger away from his sternum in silent, horrified reproach. "That doesn't make sense," he says. "And did you call me a _princess_?"

"Yes," says Dustin. "I can say _hello, my princess_ in ten languages now. I figure that should cover all my bases, so I can _reach_ some bases, and then abandon all sports metaphors for having lots of sex."

"What a constructive use of your time," Mark tells him, as dryly as he can, and puts his headphones back on. 

Dustin reaches out and slides them off his ears.

" _What_?" says Mark, actually irritated.

"Have you see Wardo since you got back?" Dustin asks, in a completely different tone of voice, and Mark looks down at his hands to hide his smile.

"Yeah," he says, to his shoes. "He, um, got back last night."

Dustin touches his shoulder. "You're doing great, Mark," he says. 

Mark has also spent his Hanukkah break trying to forget that during the Halo wars just after Eduardo left for Miami, Dustin had spotted Mark turning the key over and over his knuckles when he'd thought no-one was watching, and then actually physically forced him to explain by sitting on him until he choked out that Eduardo had given him a key to his apartment. Chris had looked like he might burst with pride; Dustin had just looked like he might burst.

"It's just a _key,_ " Mark says, now, but he can feel himself going red and pleased, and Dustin doesn't comment on it, which might actually be one of the signs of the apocalypse but is also kind of a relief.

"Sure," says Dustin, dragging it out, barreling straight out of understanding and back into cheerful and obnoxious. "It's just a key. To his _heart_."

Mark manages to catch him off-guard when he kicks him in the shin.

//

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you would wear a pink dress

_bonjour, ma princesse_

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: and little pink shoes

_ciao, mia principessa_

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: AND A TIARA

_GUTEN TAG MEINE PRINZESSIN_

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: EDUARDO WOULD BE YOUR CONSORT. HE WEARS THE TROUSERS AND YOU WEAR THE DRESS. BECAUSE YOU ARE A PRETTY PINK BAKER-LOVING PRINCESS.

HELLO, MY PRINCESS

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I am so bored

ONLY IMAGINE YOU ARE BOTH STANDING ON TOP OF A GIANT CAKE.

 

to: e.saverin@gmail.com  
from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: can I borrow a kitchen knife?

you would visit me in prison if I killed Dustin, right? IT IS AN IMMINENT EVENT.

 

from: e.saverin@gmail.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: re: alarming request for murder weapons

only if it was a conjugal visit

I'm only in this for your body

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING, WHEN YOU TURN YOUR BACK, THAT IS WHEN I WILL STRIKE

also explain why the arms are completely different lengths. troll better, moskovitz.

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I NEVER SLEEP I AM LIKE A SLOTH BUT THE OPPOSITE. I AM A HTOLS. AWAKE FOREVER, MURDERED NEVER. IF IT RHYMES IT'S TRUE.

because drawing on trackpads is hard, mark. it saddens me that you do not appreciate the pains I take to bring these delights to your life.

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: if I have a rage blackout, you are first on my hit list

consider this a warning

 

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you are not a frightening individual

BUT

STOP THREATENING ME

WHERE IS YOUR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT?

 

from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: yes I am

with hanukkah.

 

//

Mark rings in the new year ensconced in his living room with Eduardo and Chris and Dustin, playing Halo with less friendly competition and more frenzied battles to the death for honour and glory, or whatever Dustin had said, very seriously, before taking advantage of the fact that everyone was giving him the side-eye to snatch up the controller and mow them all down in one burst of devious machine-gunnery. In the spirit of the evening, Eduardo had brought along cookies shaped like beer bottles. Mark had told him he didn't have to, and Eduardo had said something polite to the bone, along the lines of always bringing a gift if you're a guest in someone's home.

"What?" Mark had said, genuinely surprised, because what the hell, Eduardo had _given Mark a key_ and he still thought he was a _guest_ in Mark's house? "Don't be ridiculous, Wardo, you're not a _guest_."

Eduardo had said it was just a figure of speech, but he'd looked pleased, and Mark had humphed something about not having heard that one before, and then turned the volume up on the tv to avoid going pointlessly red.

Eduardo had made cookies anyway, and he'd held out cookie dough to Mark on the tips of his fingers and his eyes had gone dark as Mark leaned in and swirled his tongue to the knuckles.

They did nearly burn the cookies after that, but the point is that the cookies were fine, Dustin was over the moon, and Mark has Chris's game character in his sights and he's pretty sure Chris hasn't noticed yet, so all's well that - is still in the process of ending well, if you want to be picky, because it's not yet January 1st.

The plan is to play Halo till five to the hour, and then watch the ball drop in Times Square --

 

"Seriously?" Mark asks, a little incredulous. "Isn't that a bit unbelievably lame?"

Eduardo shrugs. "I like it," he says, unapologetic, and Mark sort of can't say no, which is embarrassing. Dustin lobs a cushion at his face and tells him he's whipped, and Eduardo throws it back while Mark is still busy being indignant and says, "You know it." 

 

\-- but the power goes off at eleven, and the house is plunged into darkness.

Mark would like to know exactly which deity or part of the universe has a hand in making his life an actual sham. 

There's a moment or two where everyone sort of sits around registering the fact that there's no electricity, because they are a handful of the best and brightest minds of their generation, and then Chris says, "Mark, do you have any candles?"

" _No_ ," says Mark. "Why would I have _candles_?"

Chris says, "In case the _power goes out_." 

Mark can sort of grudgingly see his point.

Mark goes to check the fuse box when Eduardo points out that it could just be a blown fuse, but it's not. Mark is getting bad-tempered, because having things not go to plan is not something he's especially good at, but when he turns round from the unhelpful fuse box, Eduardo is holding the torch under his chin and pulling a stupid face, and Mark can't be bad-tempered about that.

They go back through to the living room, and Chris and Dustin have apparently managed to find some candles that Mark has zero recollection of buying, but slightly more importantly, they've found --

"Vodka!" says Dustin, triumphantly, holding a bottle aloft. "I have an excellent idea."

"I doubt that," says Mark. Eduardo elbows him as they sit back down, Mark in the armchair, Eduardo pressed between the arm and Mark's side, half on Mark's knee. 

"Oh ye of little faith," says Dustin, blessedly and uncharacteristically ignoring Eduardo practically sitting on Mark's lap, and he's extracted the shot glasses he bought Mark for some birthday back in Harvard and lined them up on Mark's coffee table. Mark has a sneaking, sinking suspicion that he knows where this is going. "We'll play I never!" Dustin continues, and Mark is right, and this is such a bad idea. 

"I'm sorry," Chris says, drily, from the couch. "I somehow missed the part where we time-warped back to Kirkland."

Mark checks his watch. Eleven fifteen.

"I can think of worse ideas," Eduardo offers, traitorously. Mark shoots him a glare, but Eduardo just smiles at him. Mark is CEO of Facebook and the youngest billionaire in the world and has actually made interns cry on more than one occasion (mostly accidently), but Eduardo is apparently immune to all of that. 

Dustin is watching him intently from across the room, which isn't at all alarming.

Chris says, "I - have surprisingly few objections, if it means I can get very drunk very quickly."

Dustin adds, "Plus, when Mark gets drunk, he gets _honest_."

"More honest," Chris corrects.

Mark thinks all the way back to drinking in a bar and grabbing Eduardo's wrist and saying, _it wasn't about the money_ , and goes red. Next to him, Eduardo shifts, and wraps his fingers around Mark's wrist, fingertips to his pulse point, like he's thinking the same thing. Mark doesn't look at him, because there are two other people in the room who would hear and mock him if he said something embarrassing or notice if he shoved his hand into Eduardo's pants, but he does go warm all over, which is one reason to be glad that candlelight isn't actually that far-reaching.

Chris interrupts this dignified moment in Mark's life by saying, "What the hell. Let's do it."

All the supporting pillars of Mark's argument are falling to the lure of alcohol and gossip. Mark is a falling pediment, and also possibly slightly buzzed already, which explains why he says, " _Fine_ ," in as long-suffering a voice as he can manage, and accepts the shot Dustin enthusiastically pours for him.

Chris taps his fingers against his elbow for a minute, thinking, and then he smiles in a way Mark recognises from the prank wars of freshman year, when Dustin was about to get royally served. This does not bode well. "I never," Chris says, slowly, "participated in a blow-job in a bakery."

Mark chokes on his own spit, which is dignified. He can _feel_ Eduardo blushing.

"You _told them_?" Eduardo says, mildly scandalised, and then, "Wait, no, of course you did."

He and Mark both drink, and across the room, Dustin eyes Chris with a sort of delighted admiration.

"You never accept my proposals, Christopher," he says, "but you are my favourite person."

Chris shrugs, like, _I know, I am awesome, your adulation is unnecessary_. Dustin's smile is almost wider than his face.

Mark clears his throat and all eyes snap back to him. "I never," he says, and tries to think of something retaliatory, " - had to go to student health because Dustin smashed an X-box controller into my face."

Chris flicks him off and takes a shot. Dustin reaches over to pat his knee.

"I apologised at the time," he says, not sounding particularly sorry through his cheek-wide grin, "but let me just say I am still sorry. Although not so much, because you cheated, and you deserved it, but the apology remains at least slightly valid."

Chris wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I did not cheat," he protests. "It's not my fault I can eat and hold a controller _and_ beat you senseless."

"Exactly!" cries Dustin, and Chris cocks his head to the side like _explain yourself, Moskovitz, your logic is not my logic or indeed anyone's logic_ , and Dustin goes, "I was weak from hunger! I cannot be blamed for any violent tendencies I might have displayed."

"Also," Mark points out, because he never gets sick of this argument, even though it should be grating and juvenile by now, "Dustin was weaker than usual and he _still_ beat the shit out of you."

"It was one lucky smack!" Dustin yelps, shooting wide-eyed glances at Chris, and then, instantly, backtracking: "Well, not _lucky_ , but, er, er - "

"Fluky," Eduardo chimes in. "An accidental strike."

Dustin eyes him in appreciation; Mark instinctively curls his arm tighter around Eduardo's waist. Eduardo gives this little fond smile down at his chest.

Dustin says, "Chris, Chris, Chris, we cannot fight, we must unite against mutual hyperglycemic shock and then both of us must try to land fluky accidental strikes on their happiness."

Chris is laughing seemingly despite himself, and he finally peels Dustin's hand off his knee and agrees. 

"But only if you stop rhyming," he says, and Dustin sort of shrugs with his face, and agrees.

He fills Chris's shot glass again, raising his own.

"I never," says Dustin, and Chris's expression mirrors Mark's internal trepidation, "um, I never went commando."

Unfortunately, Mark knows that is a dirty lie, and so he is entirely unsurprised when Dustin slugs back his shot. He drains his too -- laundry hadn't been his strong suit at Kirkland, or ever, and it's not like he needed to be presentable or wear anything other than three day worn sweats and a dubiously stained hoodie to _code_ \-- but he is slightly surprised when Chris drinks his shot down too, and less surprised and more _incredibly turned on_ when Eduardo knocks his back as well.

" _Christopher_ ," Dustin breathes, sounding impressed, but Mark mostly tunes this out, because although that was vaguely revelatory, he has no interest whatsoever in the contents of Chris's pants but a significantly vested interest in the contents of Eduardo's.

He's staring at Eduardo's crotch like the world's creepiest nerd despite the fact that he watched Eduardo get dressed this morning and knows full well what's under his dress pants when Dustin coughs pointedly and he looks up, going red.

Eduardo is laughing quietly behind his hand. Mark elbows him in the ribs.

"Much as I hate to agree with Dustin on anything," Chris says, "can you maybe keep the incredibly subtle eye-fucking down to a minimum while in company? Especially _single_ company. Thanks so much."

"Okay!" Eduardo jumps in, brightly, before Mark can retaliate. "My turn."

Dustin pours everyone more shots. Mark can practically taste his hangover coming.

Eduardo thinks for a second, and Mark watches the candlelight flicker on his skin, catching the dips of his collarbone where his shirt is loosely unbuttoned at the neck. Fuck, okay, maybe Mark doesn't really need any more to drink.

Not that that's going to stop him or anything.

Eduardo says, "I've never lost a game of Mario Kart." Everyone else drinks. Eduardo doesn't touch his shot.

There is a moment of shocked, awed silence, and then Dustin says, testing, suspicious, "Have you ever _played_ Mario Kart?"

"Yes," Eduardo says, and he sounds like Mark remembers hearing in his own voice when he'd turned round from the computer to tell Chris _one hundred thousand members_ , self-satisfied. "Lots."

Dustin makes this strangled noise that sounds actually painful, and Chris pats his shoulder. "Just because you can't avoid green shells doesn't mean everyone is incompetent," he says, and Dustin says, high-pitched, "There's a difference between avoiding green shells and _never losing_ , oh my god, Wardo, you are my king. The king of all kings. Except maybe Elvis."

"Do not get him started on Elvis," Mark warns, as Eduardo opens his mouth, and then kisses him, to make his point. Eduardo opens his mouth again, then, but Mark is entirely okay with that.

Chris lobs a couch cushion at them, which Mark thinks is unfair and unoriginal since Dustin already did that earlier, but he doesn't pull away for a good thirty seconds more, making his point. When he does, Eduardo has a hand up the back of his shirt, so he clearly doesn't particularly mind being part of Mark's agenda.

Mark's brain takes this moment to remind him of Eduardo's lips against his ear, _I'm not always very nice_ , and he takes advantage of the cushion on his lap by pulling it further across his crotch.

"I hate you both," Chris informs them, and Dustin pours them all more vodka.

Mark raises his glass, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Eduardo looking at him, fond, intent. He has to swallow before he can start talking, but he puts that down to the vodka finally kicking in.

He thinks, madly, dizzily, _I've never been this happy_ , but he's not drunk enough to say it. He wonders if Eduardo would drink to that. He hopes he wouldn't. He -- he thinks he really might not.

Oh god, this hangover is going to be _horrific_. 

Maybe it's going to be even more horrific than Mark is anticipating, because somewhat without him noticing, he's become drunk enough that he doesn't stop that thought right the fuck there, safe and stupid and locked in his brain, but instead lets it out, says, "I've never been this happy," aloud, where _people can hear him_ , and pushes his shot away from him on the coffee table.

Eduardo doesn't say anything, but he puts his shot down too.

Mark doesn't see whether Chris or Dustin drink, because he's too busy licking his way back into Eduardo's mouth, right there with Eduardo in his lap and Chris compiling a hoard of cushion missiles to throw at them, and Mark may be drunk, but he's not lying. 

He's so happy.

And then, like Mark's life is a movie or something else ridiculous -- who would watch a film about someone _coding_ twenty hours a day? -- the power boots back up just before midnight, and the Halo menu music makes them all jump. Mark fumbles for the remote, and switches to NBC, and right as the channel changes, fireworks go off all around them, and the stupid ball drops, and Dustin and Chris and Eduardo cheer, as one.

"Happy New Year!" Dustin is shouting, repeatedly, and then he grabs Chris's collar and kisses him. 

There seems to be a lot of that going around tonight.

Chris splutters a lot and shoves him off, and Dustin grins drunkenly at him and explains.

"You're supposed to kiss someone at midnight," he says, and Chris says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "Yeah, but not _me_."

"Well, I couldn't kiss Eduardo because Mark might have killed me," Dustin says, which is the most sensible thing he has said all night, in Mark's opinion.

"What about _Mark_?" On the other hand, Chris is rapidly losing points.

" _No_ ," Dustin says, sounding more disgusted than Mark really thinks is necessary. "And what are these protestations, Christopher, why do you continually deny my love for you?"

Mark is then distracted from the ensuing idiocy whereby Chris chases Dustin around the room with an angry cushion as Dustin shouts "I kissed Chris Hughes!" because Eduardo puts a hand on his elbow and turns him in.

"Happy New Year," he says, softly, as Mark looks up at him, and then he takes Mark's chin in his hand to tilt his face up, and kisses him. 

Afterwards, when Chris has manhandled Dustin into the backseat of a cab, because he has apparently got magical powers that enable him to get a cab in the early hours of New Years' Day, and Eduardo is sprawled over Mark's couch, making sleepy, tipsy protests that he's not tired at all in between drifting in and out of sleep, Mark sits with Eduardo's legs over his lap and his laptop balanced on Eduardo's skinny ankles and checks the traffic isn't too much for the site, that everything's holding up okay, and thinks it was a pretty good night.

//

Mark wakes up groggily, far too few hours later, with Eduardo still sprawled out across his lap, dead to the world. He's snoring again. Mark has a crick in his neck and the promise of a really horrible headache, and his stomach is doing something he suspects he's only really going to be able to ignore for a few minutes at best, but he lies there for a second and just looks at Eduardo. His mouth is open, and he's drooling a bit against the cushions, and his shirt is beyond wrinkled, and he's still the best looking thing Mark has ever seen.

There's something digging into the small of his back, and when he grimaces and reaches for it, it's his phone. He has three texts waiting.

One is from around two in the morning, when Chris and Dustin had just left. It says, _markk ilo vvvvve ewe._

Mark sends back, _thank you for your fleecy affections._

The reply comes almost instantly, _dude shut up you've never been this happy._

Fuck. Okay, well, something tells Mark he's not living that one down for a while. He files that delightful thought away to cope with when his head isn't threatening a revolt at any moment, and settles for hoping Dustin is in the throes of a really vicious morning after.

The next missed text is from Chris, around four. _dustin stripped in the cab_ , it says. _i hope you choke on your own vomit when you wake up._

Mark ignores that one, though not without a brief pang of sympathy. Naked Dustin is a harrowing Kirkland memory. Something tells him Dustin really is having a bad morning right about now.

The last text is from a couple of hours ago. It says, _happy new year :) xxxxx_

It's from Eduardo.

It is at this point that Mark's stomach decides it is high time he high tailed it off the couch, so he texts Eduardo back from the floor in the upstairs bathroom, half an hour later.

_you're missing new year's day. wake up. x_

Eduardo pads barefoot into the room a few minutes later, yawning, with his hair sticking up in stupid ways and his shirt untucked from his pants. 

"We should have sex later," Mark tells him, blearily, from the floor, and Eduardo smiles sleepily down at him.

"Okay," he says, amenably, sitting down next to Mark, "as long as you brush your teeth first."

"I make no promises," Mark says, closing his eyes and leaning against the bathroom wall, and Eduardo leans against him.

//

Another injustice in Mark's life is that Eduardo apparently has the constitution of a Brazilian ox or something, because while Mark is spending his obligatory few hours unable to pry himself off the bathroom floor, Eduardo, who had had just as much to drink as Mark, seems _fine_. It makes Mark go red, because heaving into a toilet is not the most attractive thing he's ever done in his life, but Eduardo sits in the bathroom with him and rubs circles on his lower back, and doesn't say anything about the general smell, and, basically, Mark has to keep reminding himself that he's CEO, bitch, because otherwise, this could be a little bit too much for him to cope with.

At about one in the afternoon, when Mark has a rattling headache but a steady stomach, Eduardo pries him up from the floor and pushes him gently into the shower, and when Mark goes back downstairs with wet hair and an aversion to all light, Eduardo gives him a cup of coffee. Mark sips belligerently at it, and it's strong enough to make him wince.

Eduardo lets him finish the whole cup before he starts talking. Mark is so in love with him -- in general, granted, but also specifically for that.

"Morning," he says.

"I think it's the afternoon now," Mark tells him, tipping the cup back in case he's somehow missed another gulp or twenty. "But I can't be sure."

Eduardo takes the cup away from him, and twines his hand in with Mark's. "Better?"

Mark eyes their joined hands with some suspicion. "Yes?"

"Great," says Eduardo. "Did you say something about sex?"

Mark's brain is still hangover slow, so when he just turns to gape at Eduardo, Eduardo stretches out over the couch, his shirt riding up his stomach, his legs flung out over Mark's lap.

Mark stares at the strip of exposed skin, the jut of Eduardo's hipbones as Eduardo arches his back. He swallows. The coffee is starting to kick in, and he's brushed his teeth, and, basically, yes, sex sounds like an excellent plan. Mark tells him this, and then Eduardo grabs a handful of Mark's t-shirt, and drags him down to kiss him. Eduardo's mouth tastes like toothpaste and coffee, the same as Mark's, and the journey from upright to lying against Eduardo makes Mark's head pound, but he doesn't care in the slightest.

"Bed," he says, in an incredibly undignified high pitch, when Eduardo arches up again, deliberately, this time, against him.

Eduardo hooks a leg around Mark's thigh and pulls him closer. "We're on a couch," he points out.

"It's a new year," Mark says, determined even despite Eduardo snaking a hand up the back of his t-shirt. "I want to do this in a bed."

"But why?" Eduardo asks, his hands migrating south, and Mark swears, and stands up before he loses the ability to do anything but touch Eduardo, get his voice high-pitched too.

Stretched out over the couch with his legs spread where Mark was just lying, mouth kissed red and his shirt still exposing most of his stomach, Eduardo looks like every wet dream Mark has ever had, or ever will have, except that his wet dreams clearly _sucked_ , because Eduardo is probably quantifiably the hottest thing Mark will ever see. _There must be some way to prove that_ , Mark thinks, distractedly, and then Eduardo puts a finger in his mouth, hollows his cheeks around it like a cheat and locks his eyes on Mark's and Mark swears again, more vehemently, and drags him to his feet. He's jittery from the coffee, and it's thrumming under his veins, like remembering a mistake ten lines of code back and not being able to find it again. This is different, though, this is _good_. 

"We are doing this in a bed," he says, as Eduardo laughs and gets his hands back on Mark's waist, shoving his t-shirt up again so it's skin on skin. "Wardo - I want to do this right, okay, come the fuck to bed."

Eduardo grins against Mark's ear, keeping his mouth on Mark's skin as Mark holds his wrist to lead him out of the room, and they both tumble down the corridor, and then Eduardo just shoves Mark down onto the bed as soon as they get through the door, and Mark is arching up to meet him when Eduardo swings his legs over Mark's thighs, straddles him.

"You want to do this right?" Eduardo asks, while Mark is busy trying to unbutton Eduardo's shirt with hangover-slow fingers. "What does that mean?"

Why can Eduardo never wear anything with buttons that will cooperate with Mark? Mark swears, and Eduardo laughs, and undoes them himself, shrugging the shirt onto the floor. Mark gets his hands back on Eduardo, and Eduardo full on groans, just from that, just from Mark's palms on his stomach, his ribs, his chest.

"You know," Mark pants, as Eduardo gets him on his back, runs a hand under the waistband of Mark's jeans. "You're supposed to fuck in _beds_ , Wardo."

"Yeah, well," says Eduardo, not entirely steadily, shucking Mark's jeans off, "that's not really been our M.O. so far, has it?"

He pauses with his hands on the top of Mark's boxers, and Mark swears and kicks at him, half sitting up and yanking his own t-shirt over his head. "Less abbreviations, more sex," he says, and Eduardo grins wickedly up at him.

"Whatever you say," he says, in a tone that implies Mark is not the one that is going to be actually calling the shots for very much longer, and then gets Mark's boxers round his knees and his mouth on Mark's dick, and Mark makes this horrendously embarrassing strangled sort of yelp, and lets his head fall back just beneath the pillows.

Eduardo has his hands on the tops of Mark's thighs, and he keeps pulling off to kiss the dip of Mark's stomach, run his hands up the backs of Mark's legs, over his chest, and Mark is trembling, from the coffee, or from Eduardo, or both. 

"Come here," he says, and his voice is sort of shaking too, but he ignores it in favour of tugging Eduardo down against him and licking into his mouth as Eduardo drags his hands all over him, like he doesn't want to let Mark go. Mark knows the feeling. 

He rolls them over in a spectacular feat of hangover-defiance so Eduardo's back hits the mattress, and lets his own hands wander where they want to, all over him. He palms across Eduardo's chest, the inside of his forearms, the sides of his thighs. He pulls his mouth away from Eduardo's to press open-mouthed, wet kisses against the base of Eduardo's stomach, just above the waistband of his pants, which --

"Why did you wear these?" Mark asks, running a hand up the inside of Eduardo's thigh, and Eduardo bucks a little, and says, a little breathless, "What?"

Mark will never get sick of making him sound like that, like his thoughts are slowing down to just Mark, and Mark's hands, and Mark's voice. Mark does not want to be the only thing Eduardo thinks about, because that's not a good thing to want, he knows, but he does want that occasionally. Like now. And -- okay, so a lot of other times too. Mark is good at giving his undivided attention to things; it stands to reason he'd like to get it back sometimes.

"It wasn't a suit thing," Mark explains, mouthing down the crease between Eduardo's hip and thigh. "You could have worn jeans. I wore jeans."

"Yeah," says Eduardo, not keeping his hips still at all, "but you think jeans are formalwear, so I don't think you're in a position to be doling out sartorial advice."

"If you can still say _sartorial_ ," Mark says, fumbling with Eduardo's stupid complicated belt, "I'm doing something wrong."

Eduardo laughs, and knocks Mark's hands out of the way, and then lifts his hips up so Mark can drag his pants off, his boxers too, and then Eduardo is just naked and _there_ , on Mark's bed, for Mark, and that's another thing Mark is never going to get sick of.

He takes a second just to _look_ , at Eduardo's flushed cheeks and tanned chest, his stupid toned arms, his stupid skinny hips, his stupid _face_ \--

"You are stupid," Mark tells him, because he feels like he's thinking fast and slow at once, the remnants of the hangover jostling around the edges of the caffeine rush, and Eduardo just laughs, and strokes Mark's leg with his toes, and that shouldn't be hot, but it is. Eduardo makes most things hot, apparently.

Mark hasn't checked Facebook since he woke up. It feels like he's wired in to Eduardo instead. He can think of Eduardo like code now, kind of, knows which keys to press to make him breath out fast, to make him swear, the most efficient structures. Like this, if Mark dips his head and just takes the tip of Eduardo's cock in his mouth, not even the whole head of it, _that_ makes Eduardo shudder through his whole body, and if Mark pulls off and tongues at the vein, that makes Eduardo make fists in the bed sheets, and if Mark pulls off altogether and sits back on his haunches and looks at him like _this_ , just enough of a smirk, it makes Eduardo sit up and flip them over again, shoving Mark back into the mattress.

Mark breathes out on impact, Eduardo already working his way down Mark's body, rubbing his moisturized-smooth palms over Mark's nipples so he gasps, high and entirely undignified and pleased.

"There's lube in the top drawer," Mark says, shamelessly, gesturing, and Eduardo leans straight over him to reach for it, slicking up his fingers at once. 

"Don't think I don't know what you were doing," he says, in this want-rough voice that makes Mark shiver, because he is that easy, now, for Eduardo. "You are such a _cheat_.'

"Yeah," Mark admits, as Eduardo presses Mark's thighs apart, "but so are - _fuck_."

"So are _fuck_?" Eduardo asks, working another finger inside him, and Mark just nods, because, okay, he is not actually superhuman, and that is really, really _good_. 

Adjectives are stupid, Mark has decided. Who needs to describe things when you can just _feel them?_ He tries not to close his eyes, because Eduardo's eyes are dark and he sticks his tongue out when he concentrates, like when he's piping intricate patterns on cookies, on decorative birthday cakes or whatever it is he does, and if Eduardo is code to Mark, Mark must be a pattern to Eduardo too. 

It is possible they both have work issues, but what the fuck ever, Mark is not in a position to really care about anything at this point other than Eduardo moving his fingers slowly enough that Mark thinks he must be trying to kill him. He's so hard the _air_ is uncomfortable against his skin. It's his turn to grip the bed sheets, and he swears.

"Come _on_ , Wardo," he says, because there is a time and a place for taking it slow, and this -- in Mark's incredibly unbiased opinion -- is definitely not it. He spreads his legs wider, because he is subtle like that, but Eduardo just completely ignores him, and adds a third finger.

Mark actually _moans_.

Eduardo ducks his head like he's laughing, and Mark laughs too, because, seriously, sex noises _are_ just stupid, but then Eduardo crooks his fingers inside Mark, still smiling, and Mark stops laughing and also _breathing_ , just for a second. 

"Jesus _fuck_ ," Mark manages, one breath, and twists the duvet in his fists, shuddering. He can't lie still any more, can't keep the line of his back against the bed, taking his weight into his shoulders, his heels, arching up so that Eduardo has to hold him down.

Eduardo crooks his fingers again, twice more, and he's looking at Mark like Mark is much more than the sweating, red-cheeked, desperate mess he feels, and he says, "Mark," sort of reverently as he curls his fingers around Mark's cock, and Mark comes all over his hand before Eduardo can even get a stroke in.

His back actually hurts when he takes the curve out of it, lies flat against the bed again. Eduardo slips his fingers out slowly, and crawls up to kiss him, sloppy, open-mouthed, and Mark groans, and hooks a leg around his thigh, and kisses back.

"Go on, then," says Eduardo, against Mark's mouth, grinning. "How are you going to top that?"

Mark hates him so much.

"Can't," says Mark, wiped and mulish. "Pillows."

Eduardo shifts, and he's still hard, and Mark groans. " _Pillows _," he says, again, nonsensically. "Good."__

__Eduardo eyes him. Mark wants to go to sleep at once, caffeine high or no caffeine high, but Eduardo is sweat-slick and dark-eyed, and Mark can't close his eyes to that. Eduardo gives him a grin, all teeth, dangerous, and Mark groans again, heartfelt, because he's lost to that every fucking time._ _

__"I hate you," he says, and doesn't mean it even a little bit._ _

__"I know," Eduardo says, and then he spreads his legs and lets Mark watch him get himself off, deliberate strokes. Mark shifts his hips, too tired to want to be turned on again, but helpless against it._ _

__"You are a horrible person," he moans, and levers himself up on shaky forearms and crawls over to Eduardo, falls heavily on him, pushing them both down again, upside down on the end of the bed. Eduardo pants happily against Mark's chest, and Mark _refuses_ to get hard again, that has to be impossible, he cannot have that sort of recovery time._ _

__Mark is wiped, and spent, and slow, but he is determined enough and Eduardo close enough that it only takes Mark a few imprecise pulls before Eduardo is coming, shivering all over. Mark wipes his hands on the bed sheets, and kisses him, and Eduardo pulls him down properly so they're lying chest to chest, and they lie there, sticky, and Mark kisses Eduardo's collarbone, the side of his neck._ _

__"So," Eduardo asks, as Mark drags the sheets in between them to wipe half-heartedly at their stomachs, "best New Year's sex, or best New Year's sex ever?"_ _

__Mark hits him, and Eduardo laughs, and they stay just like that for a while, curled up in the ruined bed sheets, breathing each other in._ _

__Eduardo does maybe have a point._ _

__//_ _

__After a while, Mark has to go and take his second shower of the day to get clean, and Eduardo gets in there with him, and then there is less getting clean and more getting off, but eventually they make it downstairs to the couch. Mark wants to check in with work, but even he knows better than to try to code when he's like this, thinking slow and distracted, and so he lets Eduardo throw his legs back over his lap and flip through the holiday movies until he finds one he approves of, and Mark is too sated, too content, to really mind which one it is._ _

__He puts up a token protest anyway, because he does have a reputation to uphold, but Eduardo isn't stupid and Mark doesn't have his laptop attached to his fingers, and he gives Mark this look, like, _shut up I have broken you with sex, be quiet and watch this charming movie about happiness and snow_ , and Mark shuts up._ _

__"Can I ask," Eduardo says after a while, absently rubbing Mark's thigh with his heel, and Mark fights down the insane little urge to say _yes, anything, all the time_ , "um, Chris and Dustin, are they - "_ _

__He stops. It actually takes Mark a second to extrapolate the end of that question, mostly because Eduardo's foot has migrated further up Mark's thigh, and he's trying to stop his brain short-circuiting in case he just starts molesting Eduardo again and then never does anything else with his life. The day feels like one long afterglow, a devastating combination of morning after and just _after_ , and Eduardo is there, and Mark thinks about whiteboards, and the smell in the old Kirkland staircases to get his heart rate down, and then tries to think about what Eduardo actually said._ _

__When he gets it, he laughs. "No," he says, "they're really not."_ _

__Eduardo says, in a tone of some large amount of scepticism, "Really?"_ _

__"Really," Mark says. "Although, there were people in Harvard taking bets on whether they were or not, but they weren't. They're not. No."_ _

__"People were taking bets on it, though."_ _

__"People took bets on whether I'd get kicked out, after FaceMash," Mark tells him, and Eduardo laughs. "What? They did."_ _

__"Were they _that_ couple?" Eduardo asks. "Chris and Dustin, I mean."_ _

__"Which couple?"_ _

__"You know," says Eduardo, "the Ross and Rachel."_ _

__Mark snorts. "No. Really, really, no."_ _

__"I think the lady doth protest too much," says Eduardo, and then laughs when Mark hits him with a cushion._ _

__"I will not stand for this," Eduardo tells him, his voice wavering all over the place with laughter, and then amends: "Or lie down for this, come - here -” and then he wrests the cushion out of Mark's grip as Mark is rolling his eyes, and administers retaliatory justice until Mark is red-faced and trying to squirm away._ _

__Eduardo drops the pillow off the side of the couch and covers Mark's chest with his own, kissing him into submission, which is definitely cheating._ _

__"Who's cheating now?" Mark asks, when Eduardo settles back down again._ _

__"You're not complaining," Eduardo points out, and Mark grumbles back into silence._ _

__Somehow, this is Mark's life. He is not spending New Year's Day with his website, but having a cushion fight with a stupidly attractive baker. Mark hasn't had a pillow fight since he was, like, _four_. He isn't sure that he minds, though. It's juvenile and ridiculous, but Mark hadn't been juvenile and ridiculous for a while before Eduardo. He thinks maybe it's good that he can be, now. He's _relaxed_._ _

__Obviously Eduardo has beaten something loose in Mark's brain, because this is unnecessarily sappy. Mark tries to think about dignified things like smooth lines of code, like seeing the first user sign up to theFacebook, but he's derailed by Eduardo leaning over to pick cushion fluff out of his curls. He scowls, and pretends to shrug him off, but Eduardo just bats at his shoulders until he lies still._ _

__If this is starting a year as you mean to go on, Mark worries for the sanctity of his work, because clearly he and his primate, fluff-picking boyfriend are never leaving the house again._ _

__Eduardo keeps going like there wasn't just a cushion smackdown interlude. Mark admires his focus. Among other things. Mark does not feel very focused right now._ _

__"They're very close," Eduardo says. "Chris and Dustin. They're very - "_ _

__"Yeah," says Mark. He makes a valiant mental effort to get his head back into this conversation, and shifts a bit, awkward. "I mean, we all are, kind of. We sort of - took care of each other, in college."_ _

__"Yeah?"_ _

__Mark shrugs as best he can when he's lying down. "Chris is scared of insects. Dustin has to group-study or he never gets anything done. I'm - "_ _

__" - you," Eduardo finishes, half-teasing, and Mark kicks him._ _

__Eduardo nuzzles in closer, and Mark abruptly loses his train of thought. He doesn't need it for the next few minutes though, because Eduardo is apparently content just to lie there and breathe against Mark's side. Mark is aware that they are also basically playing footsie right now, but he's warm enough and happy enough that he doesn't really mind, and also he has had sex in the last few minutes, so he figures that racks up some masculinity points he can use on tangling his feet round Eduardo's in the crumpled comforter at the end of the couch. It's sort of cramped, even on Mark's ostentatiously huge sofa, but Eduardo is this warm weight between Mark's side and the back cushions, and Mark doesn't really mind._ _

__After a few minutes, Eduardo takes his hand. Mark turns his head to look at him properly._ _

__"What?" he asks._ _

__Eduardo says, "I wish I'd known you in college too." He looks sort of wistful, and Mark thinks of himself in college, wired-in and checked out, thinks about the way Eduardo looks at him sometimes, about the way he might not have noticed, and thinks, _I'm glad you didn't_._ _

__"I'm glad I know you now," he says, on a rush of pink-cheeked honesty, and Eduardo grins down at him, because he is a soft-centered idiot who likes it when Mark says these horrifying things, and says, "Me too."_ _

__//_ _

__It's a new year, and the little bugs that have cropped up from the last profile update are making themselves known here and there, itching in Mark's otherwise irritant-free existence, and he starts playing around with a second update, a patch. Other than that, the site is running well, and so Mark can give most of his time to the fix. Eduardo's away at some baker conference or other -- Mark doesn't know what the fuck bakers need to confer about (cake still good? yep. great.) but whatever, he's being supportive -- and so he camps down in his office for the weekend and tries to make as much headway as he can, alternating Red Bulls and water because apparently his assistant and Eduardo are in cahoots now, which is mildly terrifying, and definitely not something Mark can kid himself he has any ability to defy, CEO or not._ _

__He's still working on the profile update when he looks up on Sunday and it's like fuck off o'clock at night, and he doesn't want to maybe wake Eduardo, so he goes to his own house and crashes in his own bed. He doesn't have any missed calls in the morning, which doesn't mean anything, because it's not like Mark was _expecting_ Eduardo to call, because they are separate functioning human beings and don't need to check on each other or anything ridiculous like that, so he just turns up at Eduardo's at about eight am, which is when he's usually been open for half an hour -- and the bakery is closed. Mark doesn't knock - because if Eduardo were in, the shop would be open - but he does call, standing outside on the street and looking up at Eduardo's apartment windows, their curtains drawn, listening to the phone ringing on the other end of the line._ _

__There's no answer, but there could be any one of a handful of reasons for that. Maybe he's off looking at new suppliers and can't talk right now. Maybe he's running late and doesn't have the time to answer his phone. Maybe he's overslept, and is still asleep, and didn't _hear_ the phone. Except, Eduardo likes his regular suppliers and he's hardly ever late and Mark doesn't think he'd ever be late for anything to do with his business, and that rules out over-sleeping as well - and also, Mark has had the unparalleled pleasure of waking up to the sound of Eduardo's alarm, and it is heinous and clanging and fucking _ribald_ , and nothing, not even the clichéd proverbial _dead_ could sleep through that fucker - and Mark sort of frets for a minute, there on the sidewalk, trying to decide whether he should let himself in, but ultimately goes to work, because it's not like he can _force_ Eduardo to answer his phone by, like, stalking him._ _

__Just as he gets into his office, his phone buzzes and he flips it open before the vibrate even switches to the ring._ _

__"Wardo?" he asks, not even checking the display. It's usually Eduardo calling him, now, and if it's not, Mark would like it to be. He also has thoughts like that, but will steadfastly deny it if pressed._ _

__"Hi," comes this voice, wrecked, and okay, so it is Eduardo, but maybe Eduardo after, like, bathing in poisonous gas-emitting fungus or something. "Hi, Mark."_ _

__"Wardo," Mark says again, turning away from his glass wall. "What - you sound like shit."_ _

__"Sick," says Eduardo, apparently too tired for full sentences. "You called?"_ _

__"Yeah," says Mark, "you weren't open, obviously - look, what's wrong?"_ _

__"I'm sure it's nothing," Eduardo croaks, which is the most obvious lie Mark has heard since Dustin said _I can beat Chris at Pacman, easy_. "I'll be fine."_ _

__"Yeah," says Mark. "That's happening soon."_ _

__Eduardo coughs for about five straight minutes._ _

__"Just," Mark says, looking helplessly at his untouched keyboard, "stay the fuck in bed, okay?"_ _

__"Wasn't planning on running a marathon," Eduardo says, and abruptly hangs up._ _

__Mark presses the stupid buzzer thing on his desk that his assistant had installed when she got sick of listening to him yell on the few occasions he's called her in before she's just come in herself. He presses it so hard his knuckle, bent inverse, goes white, which is new._ _

__He sends Lauren out for chicken soup, and seconds later Chris shows up in his office, which is slightly unexpected and also not soup. Mark just wants the soup to get here already. He's got a full day of code ahead; he doesn't have time to wait around much longer._ _

__"What?" he snaps, in Chris's direction. He wants to start typing, but he knows if he starts now and gets interrupted, he won't get his train of thought back. He's waiting. His laptop is right fucking there, but he's waiting._ _

__"Lauren tells me you asked for chicken soup," Chris says, eyeing him like he's trying to x-ray out the problem. "Are you sick?"_ _

__"No," says Mark, jiggling his leg up and down, impatient, trying not to look at the clock. "And why did she tell you that?"_ _

__Chris waves a hand at him, coming over to peer into his face. Mark bears this with very poor grace, but it's Chris, and Chris is used to it, and Mark is used to _him_ , and so it all passes without comment. Chris straightens up again. "She tells me if you ask for anything that's not made of sugar or caffeine," he says. "Mostly because I think she thinks you might be dying. Or bringing about the robot uprising, but that's a different thing to the chicken soup thing."_ _

__"It's Eduardo," Mark says, mostly to stop Chris talking. He knows Chris does it on purpose, but there's a reason for that, and the reason is: it works. "Wardo's sick."_ _

__"And you're getting him chicken soup?" Chris says, his face doing something funny, like he's trying to look sympathetic and proud at the same time. "You're - going to take him chicken soup?"_ _

__"Yes," Mark snaps, because this is fucking obvious. "He's sick enough to _admit_ he's sick, so I need to make sure he's not, I don't know, passed out in the bathroom or something. What if he doesn't wake up to get himself a drink and dehydrates?"_ _

__Chris's mouth is twitching. Mark stares accusatorily at it._ _

__"What?"_ _

__"Nothing," Chris says. "Except I sort of wish you _were_ organising the robot uprising so that time travel would come next, and I could John Connor my way back to Harvard and play myself what you just said."_ _

__"Would that scenario make me Sarah Connor?" Mark asks, temporarily distracted. "Because if so, I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with it."_ _

__"Your virtue's safe with me," Chris says. "Besides, you're taken."_ _

__"I wasn't then," Mark says._ _

__"Yes, you were," Chris tells him. "And if you're going to pretend you've not essentially fucked a website into creation, we are ending this conversation right now."_ _

__"You've been spending too much time with Dustin," Mark says, mildly disturbed, but luckily for everyone involved, Lauren turns up bearing a takeaway soup container from the canteen before Chris can say anything in reply._ _

__"Took you long enough," Mark mutters, standing up with his backpack already over his shoulder, taking the soup from Lauren's hands before she even clears the doorway._ _

__"Excuse me?"_ _

__"Ignore him," Chris says, in his customary _Mark doesn't understand people_ voice. "He's distracted by love and snot."_ _

__"I am going to pretend to understand," Lauren says, slowly. "But I'm really glad I don't."_ _

__Mark says, twisting over his shoulder before the door shuts behind him, "I'm going to be out of the office today, email me if anything explodes," and leaves properly before Chris can do anything more than give him a thumbs-up. He really has been spending too much time with Dustin. This is probably because someone needs to pull Dustin away from the Pacman machine sometimes, before he hits it like it's Whack-a-mole after game after game of Chris's score being actually galactically unbeatable._ _

__Mark is sometimes really proud of his friends._ _

__He navigates the locked bakery door with difficulty some minutes later as he tries to juggle keys and backpack and soup at the same time, but he manages to get inside and lock the door and turn the alarm off without breaking his laptop or his spine, or spilling any soup, and heads up the stairs without turning on a light. It hasn't been long enough since he did this for the first time for the thrill of novelty to wear off, much as he would point-blank refuse to admit that to anyone (mostly to Dustin), but it's tempered by the slight knot of worry in his stomach, the stupid, _pointless_ knot of worry in his stomach, because Eduardo is a fully grown adult and will not perish because of a _cold_ , but Mark can't rationalize it loose. _ _

__"Wardo?" he says, pushing open the apartment door, going into Eduardo's living room and kicking off his sneakers. "Are you dead?"_ _

__There's a muffled, snot-fuelled noise to the contrary coming from the bedroom, so Mark pads through the kitchen in his socks and pauses in the doorway._ _

__Eduardo is sitting up and wrapped in the duvet, doing something on his laptop that Mark is fairly sure he is too sweaty to be doing, and he looks up with red-rimmed eyes as Mark says, "What the fuck are you doing?"_ _

__His bedside manner may need some work, he will admit._ _

__"Working," says Eduardo, only it comes out like _wurkinb_ , and Mark raises an eyebrow._ _

__"Okay," he says, watching Eduardo shiver even though there's an unhealthy bloom of colour in his cheeks. "Working. Why?"_ _

__"I can't serve customers like this," Eduardo explains, in his new ridiculous voice. "It'd be bad for business."_ _

__"So you're snotting all over your keyboard instead?" Mark is one to talk -- his laptop is frequently unpleasantly sticky from various sugary residues left on Mark's fingers from wet red vines -- but _whatever_ , Mark's never claimed not to be a hypocrite._ _

__"I'm researching for Valentine's Day," Eduardo tells him, and then coughs into the crook of his elbow while Mark tries to stop his eyebrows doing something presumptive and lewd. " _Recipes_ , you terrible pervert. It's the busiest time of year for bakeries, I've heard."_ _

__"What about all the pies?" Mark asks, distracted from his health-related line of questioning by momentary nauseatedly nostalgic pie-related flashbacks. "Wasn't Thanksgiving pretty busy?"_ _

__"People can make pies," Eduardo says, shivering some more, and Mark comes and sits on the opposite side of the bed and wonders if there's a wrong way to check someone's temperature with the back of your hand. It seems to come so easily to everyone else; Mark's hands are pretty much only good for typing, and - well, other, equally keyboard-sticky, things. Eduardo continues, "Making pie is sort of the point. The point of Valentine's Day is to _buy_ stuff."_ _

__"Stuff?" Mark repeats, skeptical, and then winces and takes Eduardo's laptop away from him as he sneezes. Even sick, Eduardo gives him this look like _I have touched your keyboard, Mark, and it may have given me salmonella_ but Mark ignores it, and picks up the polystyrene cup of soup._ _

__"Here," he says, pushing it at Eduardo. "You need food."_ _

__Eduardo cups his hands around it as Mark takes the lid off. "You brought me chicken soup?" he asks, in an odd, happy sort of voice, and Mark feels hot and uncomfortable and a bit like he's pretending to be a person, so he's a little bit tetchy when he says, "No, Wardo, it's an octopus."_ _

__"Mmm," says Eduardo, playing along. "I am sure calamari has plenty of healing properties."_ _

__"That's _squid_ , genius," Mark says, but Eduardo sneezes again and Mark puts the back of his hand against Eduardo's gross sweaty forehead without giving it much more thought. _ _

__"You are disgusting," he complains, as Eduardo makes this surprised little sound like he wasn't expecting Mark to actually attempt anything so banally caring. "Now my hand's all sweaty."_ _

__"Sorry," says Eduardo, not sounding it. "Is my disease causing you problems?"_ _

__"Yes," says Mark. "I should be working and instead I am here with a carrier of the plague who doesn't know when to turn his fucking laptop off and go the fuck to sleep."_ _

__The irony is not lost on Mark here, but he still feels that the look Eduardo gives him is a little too smug to be called for._ _

__"Get me a spoon," Eduardo says. "I refuse to drink my soup."_ _

__Mark huffs and sighs and tells him he's being difficult, but goes back into the kitchen to rummage in the cutlery drawer. Eduardo doesn't seem as bad as he'd sounded on the phone. Mark is pretty sure he's coded through worse, like the time Chris had found him passed out on his desk with a 101 degree fever, and shouted at him as soon as he was awake for things like _abusing his body_ and _idiotic lack of self-awareness_ and _not drinking enough fluids_ , and then manhandled him into bed in a way that made all Mark's sore joints hurt, and shoved a thermometer in his mouth. He thinks maybe he could go back to work, and Eduardo could go to sleep, and then he could come back and make sure Eduardo is still not dead in the evening, like normal, except Eduardo would sneeze more and Mark would have to pick up take-out instead of watching Eduardo cook something complicated and apparently, oxymoronically, effortless to make._ _

__He changes his mind about this entirely when he goes back into the bedroom and Eduardo has his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the headboard, the soup container still held loosely in his hands, and he looks _awful_. Mark doesn't know what his own face looks like, but apparently it's slightly more worried than he'd like, because when Eduardo opens his eyes, he laughs all croakily, making grabby hands for the spoon Mark is holding._ _

__"Shut up," he says. "I'll be fine."_ _

__"I'm not worried," Mark lies, watching Eduardo's eyes flicker closed again as he sips at the soup. "I just think it would be awkward for me to have to dispose of your body, that's all."_ _

__"Your concern is touching," says Eduardo, and Mark says, "Although, I mean, I am a billionaire, I could probably pay someone to dump you in a river or something," and Eduardo snorts into his spoon so that soup splatters the duvet. Mark is not a paragon of cleanliness so he doesn't really mind, but Eduardo looks a little put out._ _

__"You can wash the sheets later," Mark says, helpfully, and Eduardo says, "Thank you for your care and contribution to the household chores."_ _

__Eduardo does fall asleep, after Mark has nagged him into finishing all the soup -- it's kind of nice to be on the other end of that equation, guilt-tripping calculation rather than grudging, sulky outcome -- and Mark boots up his own laptop and gets on with his work right there while Eduardo burrows further down into the roll of duvet and sweats and snores and sweats some more on the other side of the bed._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: hey nurse nancy 

__how's the patient?_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: why are sick people so disgusting 

__revolting but okay, I think._ _

__don't tell Dustin where I am._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: are you wearing an apron? do you have a pocket watch? are you a naughty, naughty nurse? 

__HAVE YOU TAKEN HIS TEMPERATURE_ _

__DO YOU KNOW THEY'RE NOT ANALGESICS_ _

__DOES HE GIVE YOU LOVE LIKE A FEVER OR JUST THE ACTUAL FLU_ _

__IS HE A HOT PATOOTIE OR JUST HOT_ _

__IS HIS LOVE A DRUG OR IS HE JUST ON TYLENOL_ _

__IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF HE LOVES YOU SO IT'S IN HIS KISS_ _

__

__

__BUT SO IS THE PLAGUE_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: BEYOND THE PALE, CHRISTOPHER 

__find him. hurt him. no questions will be asked._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: your penchant for pain is mildly alarming, does wardo know? 

__i am bruised, mark. BRUISED. next time don't recruit chris to injure me. do it yourself if it gives you so much satisfaction. chris is lethal and you are weak and puny._ _

__which is probably lucky for eduardo but not so much for me._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: you are one to talk 

__you just like it when chris touches you, stop bitching. you would let him bruise you any day of the week._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: WHY DO YOU INFLICT THESE THINGS UPON ME 

__tell Dustin to quit saying horrifying things to me or _I_ will quit and leave you to fend for yourself and then you will see how necessary I am and how unabused I should be._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: fwd: CHRIS CHRIS CHRISSSSSTOPHER 

__MARK SAYS I LIKE IT WHEN YOU HURT ME_ _

__BUT I DON'T_ _

__I AM EASILY WOUNDED LIKE PUDDING BUT ALSO STRONG AND MANLY LIKE A BOAR_ _

__A SEXY BOAR_ _

__DON'T HURT ME I AM A SEXY PUDDING BOAR._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: re: fwd: CHRIS CHRIS CHRISSSSSSTOPHER 

__I am being sneezed on by a disease-riddled baker_ _

__deal with your own problems_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: YOUR GRATITUDE FOR MY SUPERB EXISTENCE HAS BEEN DULY NOTED 

__YOU GIGANTIC INGRATE_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: I am CEO, I don't have to be grateful 

__gigantic is right._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: next time I am letting you flounder 

__don't come crying to me when you can't deal with your feelings. THE CHRIS HUGHES FOUNDATION FOR THE EMOTIONALLY-STUNTED IS NOW CLOSED. TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE._ _

__WE HEAR THE DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ CLINIC OF TORMENT IS ACCEPTING OUR ERSTWHILE CLIENTS._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
to: I am a founder but I never flounder 

__you would know all about the Dustin Moskovitz clinic of torment._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: oh my god, mark, your wordplay is so astoundingly funny 

__I hope you are not insinuating what I think you are insinuating_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: god your sarcasm is so subtle and delicate 

__I am insinuating nothing. Bow to the truth._ _

__fuck okay Eduardo is waking up, go back to work._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: delicate like your tiny brittle bones 

__message received stop_ _

__mockery on hold till further notice stop_ _

__make sure he drinks enough_ _

__don't let him take painkillers on an empty stomach_ _

__you are a good person really. if I say this enough times will you actually give me that raise?_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I HOPE YOU GET THE PLAGUE 

__but don't let Eduardo die, because I need cake like I need air._ _

__MY LIFE WOULD BE EMPTY WITHOUT CAKE MARK BUT IT WOULD BE ONLY MARGINALLY LESS FULL THAN NORMAL WITHOUT YOU._ _

__BEAR THAT IN MIND_ _

__ALSO FUCKING DOES NOT CURE ANYONE_ _

__STOP TRYING TO HEAL HIM WITH YOUR DICK._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitdustin@facebook,com  
subj: messages unfortunately received 

__over and out_ _

__(no-one is getting any raises until there are fewer dick-related messages in my inbox)_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: (no subject) 

__I KNOW WHOSE DICK-RELATED MESSAGE YOU WANT IN YOUR INBOX_ _

__IT'S EDUARDO'S_ _

__AND BY "DICK-RELATED" I JUST MEAN "PENIS"._ _

__

__OH YEAH BABY SEND THAT MESSAGE SEND IT HARDER THAT'S REALLY HITTING MY INBOX_ _

__

__ETC ETC ETC_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: already on it 

__pain express, last stop: moskovitz central_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: taste my gratitude 

__you are a cherished employee_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I'd really rather not 

__about fucking time too._ _

__//_ _

__Eduardo is less noticeably contagious the next day, but Mark forces him to take another day off._ _

__"No-one wants to eat plague cake," he says. "Apart from maybe Dustin, but there's clearly something wrong with him."_ _

__"I really have to _work_ , Mark," says Eduardo, in a much stronger voice than the day before, but he goes with it when Mark bodily shoves him back against the pillows. _ _

__"Tomorrow," says Mark, firmly. "If you die or something, I think Dustin might quit and as irritating as he is, I do actually need him to stay."_ _

__"I am going to tell him you said that," Eduardo says, eyelids already flickering closed -- Mark is so fucking right about all things he wonders why people even bother arguing with him anymore -- and Mark says, "Don't you dare," because he's supposed to, and Eduardo pats his hand as he drifts off to sleep._ _

__Mark goes into the office, because Eduardo is looking less like something from Dawn of the Dead and more like he just needs to sleep for a week, and Mark's typing probably isn't going to help with that endeavor, and also because he doesn't like being away for too long, ridiculous sick boyfriend or not._ _

__There's a new raft of game updates going up that afternoon, and even after all this time Mark is still wary about third party code, and Dustin comes to sit with him when the changes go live._ _

__He squeezes Mark's shoulder, and gives him a Red Bull._ _

__"It'll be fine, Marky Mark," he says. "It's always fine."_ _

__"I know," Mark grouses, staring at his screen, daring something to go wrong. "I was actually here for the last few years, Dustin."_ _

__His phone bleeps._ _

___game updates go okay? :)_ _ _

__Dustin grabs Mark's phone straight out of his hand; Mark swears, and tries to grab it back._ _

__Dustin's mouth is doing something funny whereby it can't hold one shape. "I," he says. "He. You."_ _

__"Excellent pronouns," says Mark. "Please don't attach them to sentences, you'll ruin the pronominal moment."_ _

__Dustin gives him his phone back wordlessly, and Mark is feeling magnanimous because nothing on his site has broken due to someone else's incompetence, so he lets him watch over his shoulder as he types back._ _

___okay so far. are you in bed??_ _ _

___why?_ comes the reply. _do you want me to be?__ _

__"Okay!" says Mark, slamming his hand down over his phone as Dustin makes some sort of system failure noise behind him. "Grown up time is over now, get out."_ _

__"Why?" says Dustin, grinning more widely than Mark feels is necessary. Dustin is the only person Mark knows who can grin and leer at the same time, which would be impressive if it wasn't so horrifying. "Do you _want me to_?"_ _

__Mark flicks him off, and turns back to his phone._ _

___I am not fucking the infected_ , he sends._ _

___braaaaains_ , sends Eduardo, and Mark grins down at the screen and is glad Dustin is out of the room._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: elvis has left the building 

__continue with your sexting_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: tell me I put something in your contract forbidding you to sing elvis at work 

__you don't look good jealous_ _

__which is unfortunate for you, because it is your only epithet._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: YOU'RE ALL SHOOK UP AH HUH HUH 

__AH HUH_ _

__YEAH YEAH_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: you are not the king 

__you ain't nothing but a hound dog_ _

__crying all the time_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you ain't nothing but a hound dog 

__crying all the time_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: well you ain't never caught a rabbit 

__and you ain't no friend of mine_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: GRAMMAR SAYS OTHERWISE 

__THAT'S A DOUBLE NEGATIVE._ _

__YOU ARE ONLY CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE FOR MEEEEEEE._ _

__//_ _

__Mark is not exactly keeping a closer eye on Eduardo, or anything ridiculous like that, but when the bakery is back open and Eduardo is back to a level of health that won't scare people away from eating things he's made, Mark does maybe spend a few more hours coding vigilantly in the window seat than he has been doing._ _

__Eduardo eyebrows at him from behind the counter, but Mark ignores it. Eduardo goes about setting out his displays and serving customers and running the horrendously loud coffee machine with this little fond smile on his face, and Mark times his glances up from his incredibly well-disguised position behind his laptop to when Eduardo is not looking over at him. Because Mark is not keeping an eye on him. He's just. He's _looking_ , which is not the same thing._ _

__One of the things Mark notices during his period of not keeping an eye on Eduardo is that towards the end of the week, Eduardo starts limping slightly._ _

__Mark narrows his eyes at him as he comes over to the couch on Saturday evening._ _

__"You're limping," he accuses._ _

__"Yes," Eduardo says._ _

__"Why?"_ _

__Mark's bedside manner may not be the best, but it certainly gets to the point._ _

__"I've been standing up for a week," Eduardo says, propping his feet up on Mark's lap, avoiding the laptop already perched on Mark's knees. "I limp at the end of _every_ week, Mark, there's only so much good shoes can do."_ _

__"That's stupid," Mark tells him. "Your job is crippling you."_ _

__Eduardo runs his fingers through the curls at the nape of Mark's neck. Mark leans into it for a second._ _

__"Don't try to distract me," he says. "We're talking about you."_ _

__"No," Eduardo says, "you're talking about me, I'm just putting up with you."_ _

__Mark frowns at him, and grabs his feet._ _

__"Okay," says Eduardo. "Now what?"_ _

__Mark has not given anyone a foot rub for a while, because _ew, feet_ , and other such intellectual thoughts, but his mom used to get sore feet and he's always been good with his hands, so he's had some practice, and, okay, so that's an anecdote he doesn't need to share with anyone, but what he does need to do make Eduardo feel better._ _

__Mark has never really been this concerned about someone else's feelings before. It's a little disconcerting._ _

__"Fuck," says Eduardo, heartfelt and guttural, as Mark digs his fingers into the part of Eduardo's foot where the arch starts to meet the heel. Eduardo tips his head back, closing his eyes. "Oh my _god_. Keep doing that."_ _

__Mark absolutely refuses to get hard from touching Eduardo's _feet_._ _

__Mark drags his knuckles along the inside arches, and Eduardo arches back too. " _Christ_."_ _

__Mark doesn't even say anything lame like _actually, my name's Mark_ but only because he's busy looking at Eduardo's face screwing up like he's not sure whether to pull away from Mark's hands or push against them, the flush rising on his cheeks._ _

__"Your ankles are swollen," Mark tells him, instead. "Jesus Christ, Wardo, what do you do all day?"_ _

__"I _stand up_ ," Eduardo tells him, flexing his feet under Mark's touch. "I know this is a foreign concept to you, but some people have these things called feet, and they use them to _move around_."_ _

__Mark pokes his sole in indignation, and Eduardo flinches. Mark files that away for a second, so he can say, "I stand up too; I am not a completely sedentary human being," and then when Eduardo starts to reply, Mark pokes him again._ _

__Eduardo giggles._ _

__He actually _giggles_._ _

__"Oh my god," says Mark, because this might actually be the best thing he has discovered about Eduardo to date, if the defensive line Eduardo's mouth has formed is anything to go by. "You're ticklish."_ _

__Eduardo starts to pull his feet away from Mark's hands, but Mark holds them down._ _

__"No," Eduardo lies. "Of course not."_ _

__"Except you _are_ ," Mark says, and he does it again, the hint of fingertips on the sole of Eduardo's foot, and Eduardo fists a hand in the comforter, laughing, swearing at him, but he doesn't try to pull away._ _

__Mark has never had anything else like this in his life; it feels slightly like he's stuck in a giant pinball machine with Eduardo at the controls. He pitches from turned on to giddy, and he has Eduardo's _feet_ in his _hands_ , and Eduardo is sprawled out and laughing helplessly and breathily all over the place, and Mark needs to man the fuck up and tell him he loves him -- because he's pretty damn sure Eduardo loves him back._ _

__//_ _

__Mark is not the most reticent person when it comes to making his opinions known, but this feels a little different. He doesn't know if there's some kind of etiquette to these things. Have they been together long enough for it to be okay for him to say it? If he says it now, will Eduardo be okay with it? Would it be like putting ads on the site too early and putting people off?_ _

__Mark hates relationships, and conventions, and himself._ _

__There's also the small matter that he's not exactly the best conversationalist, and he's doubly bad at talking about his feelings. Chris is a good man and will never mention it, but there was one time in Kirkland when Mark was wasted that he apparently felt it was of the utmost importance that he let Chris and Dustin know how much they meant to him -- when he was sober again, Mark decreased their value out of sheer embarrassment and dismay, but they both ignored him -- and was sick on the couch in the process. Dustin has no such compunctions about bringing this incident up._ _

__Mark definitely doesn't want to vomit on Eduardo in the middle of telling him he loves him._ _

__Even _Chris and Dustin_ have said I love you to each other, but Mark thinks that's probably more bromantical than anything else. Dustin's don't really count, because he is _Dustin_ , he tells Starbucks baristas he loves them if he's tired enough, but Chris's I love you was also under extenuating circumstances, because he had inadvisably opened the cupboard under the sink in Kirkland on one of his cleaning benders, and there was, like, an actual hoard of silverfish in there, and Chris had an actual conniption fit and stood on the coffee table and Dustin was surprisingly adult and reassuring even as he went into battle with a roll of toilet paper and an alarmingly practiced war cry._ _

__Chris was really good about the endless mockery that followed, probably because he was aware how stupid it was to _stand on the coffee table_ like he was a girl and the silverfish were mice, which was probably a good thing, because Mark is pretty sure Dustin still hasn't let it go, if his names on the Pacman leader board are anything to go by. _Dustin. The Dustinator. Eat This, Silverfish._ Mark despairs a bit, but the top spot is still held by Chris. _Beat this, Moskovitz.__ _

__Anyway. Chris had said _I love you_ , kind of fervently, as Dustin had dropped sweatily and victoriously down onto the couch and Mark had picked his way through the pulverized silverfish corpses to get them all beers, and Dustin had shrugged, and said he knew, and then Chris had let him win at Mario Kart for the next twenty four hours._ _

__Mark would not let anyone else win at Mario Kart. Eduardo has never _lost_ at Mario Kart anyway, so that's no help. Eduardo is not fazed by insects. That's no help either._ _

__And it's not like there's a guidebook on how to do these things. Is there some sort of universally accepted way this is supposed to go that Mark doesn't know because he was too busy building the end result, click here for _in a relationship with_? There is no _click here to say I love you without sounding like a douche_. Maybe he should look into that._ _

__Mark does not want to take the coward's way out or anything, but he thinks maybe if he just waits, the right moment will make itself known._ _

__Never in his life has he been more grateful for the ability to wire in._ _

__//_ _

__Eduardo cooks a lot. Which, okay, is like saying Mark codes a lot, because they do have _jobs_ , but Eduardo cooks as well as bakes. Mark sometimes watches him standing in his little apartment kitchen with a tea towel over his shoulder because he is worryingly laissez-faire about fire hazards when he's not at work, doing something complicated with a pan and little spice bottles that have come out of his _neatly organized spice rack_ , and then it's like Eduardo can feel Mark staring in some disbelief at his back, because he turns round and grins at him, and tells him if he's got time to stare, he's got time to help, and ropes him into putting the laptop down and getting out plates. _ _

__Sometimes he goes and puts his arms around Eduardo's waist while he's stirring pasta sauce, or rests his head in the crook between shoulder and neck while Eduardo is stir-frying vegetables so that Eduardo bends at an odd angle to pat Mark's cheeks and tell him if he gets burning oil in his eyes and goes blind and can't code then it's his own fault and he can't come crying to Eduardo, and Mark tells him he doesn't cry, and Eduardo laughs all cheerfully and tells him he's seen Mark at the end of A.I., and not to pretend otherwise. Mark insists that was a trick of the light, and Eduardo flips vegetables and adds in soy sauce, and smiles down at the pan._ _

__These are little moments Mark had never thought about having before, the ones he doesn't tell anyone about. He'd always thought about a relationship as maybe having sex on tap with someone you liked enough to keep around, and who liked you enough to, say, tolerate the immense amount of coding you did and who didn't mind always being second-best. Mark didn't really think he could _have_ a relationship like this, like Eduardo kissing crumbs off Mark's lips and curling into Mark's side when they watch movies on the sofa, like Mark falling asleep with his head on Eduardo's chest while Eduardo runs an absent, sleepy hand through his curls, like -- like fucking pony cookies, and Eduardo giving him a key, and if Mark's entirely honest with himself, he didn't know if he'd want it. _ _

__Eduardo is like nothing Mark has ever known before, definitely nothing Mark would have ever thought he wanted, but he does. He wants._ _

__There are times, when he's awake in the middle of the night and tired enough that his keyboard looks blurry, he's so scared he will fuck this all up. He doesn't even know how to say _I love you_ properly. He's used to putting everything second, but he knows, code-deep, he knows, that he doesn't want Eduardo to be second-best._ _

__And then he stops worrying, when he thinks that, because that's probably half the battle right there, and Mark is not good at only doing things halfway. So. He waits for his moment._ _

__One Sunday, Mark is woken up by the smell of something delicious floating through into the bedroom, and he's instantly hungry before he's even remembered what day it is, or thought to check the time. It's ten am, the clock tells him. The last thing Mark remembers, it was ten _p_ m and Eduardo had dragged him into the bedroom, exhausted, and lain down with his face pressed into the crook of Mark's neck, an arm flung across Mark's chest. Mark had said he wasn't a fucking teddy bear, no real heat to it, and Eduardo had muttered something inaudible, and fallen asleep. Mark remembers thinking he was never going to get to sleep, that he had too much to do, that he would give Eduardo half an hour to be asleep enough that he wouldn't disturb him by getting up, but now it is mid-morning and Mark has been out for twelve whole hours, and Eduardo is cooking. The food smell is more a seven pm smell, onions and garlic and some kind of meat. Mark goes through into the warm kitchen with bed-hair, not bothering to put anything else on over his boxers, to find Eduardo fully dressed and stirring a pot of stew. _ _

__"Hey," says Eduardo, smiling at Mark over his shoulder._ _

__"What's that?" says Mark, master of morning conversation._ _

__"Lunch," says Eduardo. "It's traditional. It's also mostly traditional for Saturdays, but Sundays are my day off."_ _

__Mark scratches the back of his neck, pillow-creased. "Okay," he says, and sits down in one of the kitchen chair, rubs sleep out of his eyes while Eduardo drains a dish of beans and tips them into the pot, lifts the wooden spoon to his mouth for a taste._ _

__"I have to take inventory," he tells Mark, when Mark is slightly more conscious. "Can you stir this?"_ _

__Mark is definitely physically capable of stirring a pot of food, but also needs more precise information before he can commit to not ruining whatever it is Eduardo is cooking. Not that he's going to share that information with Eduardo. Eduardo was witness to the Great Grilled Cheese Disaster of early November, and doesn't need any more kitchen-based ammunition to tease Mark about, gently derisive, all elbows and sweetly mocking mouth._ _

__"How often?" he says, looking warily at the pot on the stove._ _

__"As often as you think," Eduardo say, smiling like he's trying not to laugh, which Mark feels is definitely unfair. "Occasionally. Not too much."_ _

__"That is disgustingly unhelpful," Mark tells him._ _

__Eduardo shrugs. "The food's not disgusting."_ _

__"You're disgusting."_ _

___Disgusting_ has stopped being a real word by this point._ _

__Eduardo comes over and kisses him, morning soft, like maybe Mark's mouth needs waking up too. He puts his hands on Mark's shoulders, looks him in the eye._ _

__"You'll be fine," he says. "Pretend it's code. It needs as much of your attention as you can give it, but sometimes you just need to let it breathe."_ _

__Mark is still slightly too asleep to take all this flowery greetings-card nonsense in. Code doesn't breathe. He sometimes doesn't notice himself breathing while he's coding either. "Is there a way I can make this explode?" he asks. No-one would put that on a greetings-card._ _

__"If I thought you could burn it," Eduardo says, "I wouldn't have asked."_ _

__"Your confidence in me is inspiring," Mark grumbles. "Bring me my laptop."_ _

__Eduardo goes off to the sofa and comes back with Mark's laptop, and his headphones too. Mark doesn't say thank you, but Eduardo says, "You're welcome."_ _

__"Whatever," says Mark. "Go count things."_ _

__Eduardo heads downstairs to the bakery, and Mark brings up the profile update he's been working on, in his spare time. It's like things are coming full circle, almost, or like one of those time-passing montages in movies that Eduardo likes to watch when he can't sleep, the ones where nothing really happens but people feel a lot of feelings about inconsequential things, and Eduardo lies back against Mark on the couch with a blanket over their tangled legs and Mark watches Eduardo's chest rise and fall as his breathing evens out, late night steady, and something indie plays quietly on the movie's soundtrack. It's not really like that at all in Mark's life, because his job means that things change constantly, and something is always happening, and he doesn't like to feel any of the feelings as intensely as low budget movies would like him to do, but here he is, in Eduardo's kitchen, working on his next profile update, and it's almost spring, and Mark's in love, and Eduardo would like him to stir a pot of unnecessarily nice-smelling stew for their lunch._ _

__About an hour passes with Mark trying to guess what _occasionally_ means in relation to cooking times, and if it's possible to be bad at _stirring something_ , and then Eduardo comes back up the stairs a little dusty from the top shelves of his cupboards, and lifts the lid of the pot with a playfully judgmental eyebrow raise, and Mark is actually slightly nervous, which is stupid. This whole day is stupid. Mark is stupid, and Eduardo's face is stupid, and Mark needs to come up with better adjectives, or out of denial._ _

__Eduardo doesn't say anything, but he smiles to himself, and Mark pretends he wasn't watching and goes back to coding. He listens to Eduardo moving around at the kitchen counters, chopping something ominously green in Mark's peripheral vision, putting rice on to boil. Mark codes harder, and Eduardo hums something tuneless and indistinct, and it's Sunday, and everything feels slow._ _

__Eduardo starts to serve lunch up when Mark's stomach starts rumbling, and comes over to physically remove his laptop from him._ _

__Mark starts, a token, expected protest, "I - " and Eduardo stops him right there, says, "You saved it, don't even try that."_ _

__"But I - " Mark tries again, half-heartedly, and Eduardo tugs him up out of his chair and tells him to go put a t-shirt on or something, because he knows Mark is going to drop burning stew on his chest and then bitch about it forever._ _

__Mark mutters, "I don't _bitch_ about things, I'm not _Dustin_ ," and Eduardo just smiles contradictorily at him, and shoves him out of the room._ _

__When he comes back into the kitchen, saying something crass and easy along the lines of, "You don't _normally_ want me to put clothes _on_ ," Eduardo is sitting at the table waiting for him._ _

__Mark slides into the chair opposite and picks up his fork, poking at the stew in a deliberate and entirely fake show of distrust._ _

__"Hmm," he says, trying to sound dubious, and Eduardo snorts, and kicks Mark under the table._ _

__"Shut up and eat it," he says, and Mark says, " _Fine_ ," like he's conceding something, and forks up a mouthful under Eduardo's watchful, grinning, gaze._ _

__"Oh my god," he says, like he's on one of those alarming food network shows where the presenters make a big deal out of some dish that looks really atrocious, but Mark's declaration is entirely, embarrassingly, genuine. It is the kind of good that makes Mark want to renounce red vines and just funnel this into his face forever instead. "Oh my _god_."_ _

__"Good?" says Eduardo, like he has zero doubts about his cooking prowess, which should be irritating, but - isn't._ _

__"Stop making words," Mark says, mouth full. "Eating now."_ _

__Eduardo laughs, full-bodied, tipping his head back, and starts eating too._ _

__When Mark has put enough food in his face to be able to deal with how good it is and regain some semblance of social awareness, he looks up and asks, "What is it?" which makes Eduardo laugh again, in the middle of chewing, putting his hand over his mouth._ _

__"It's called _feijoada_ ," he says. Mark watches his mouth shape the word, likes the way Eduardo's voice thickens when he slips into Portuguese._ _

__"Is that Portuguese for _really, really good_?" he asks._ _

__"Pretty much," Eduardo says. "It's the Brazilian national dish."_ _

__"Beats turkey jerky," says Mark, and Eduardo says, dry, "I'm glad it meets with your approval."_ _

__"You should be," Mark tells him, and Eduardo kicks him again._ _

__Maybe this is the right moment? Mark is warm, and happy, and Eduardo is grinning at him, and he cooked, and, okay, okay, Mark is going to go for it._ _

__He looks at Eduardo over the table and says, "I love - " and then actually legitimately chokes, like his own body has decided this is actually too ridiculous and has prevented him from going any further by stopping masticated meat in his throat._ _

__Eduardo gets him a glass of water and watches like he's actually concerned while Mark hacks and splutters and slams back the water until his esophagus has stopped spasming._ _

__"Okay?" Eduardo asks, while Mark wipes, humiliated, at his streaming eyes._ _

__"Yeah," he says. "But I've changed my mind."_ _

__"About what?" Eduardo asks, and Mark even likes the way he holds his fork as he takes another bite, half rice, half _feijoada_ , because Eduardo likes things in balance. Except, Mark has noticed, he likes all of Mark. _ _

__Mark says, "About the stew, I don't love it at all."_ _

__Eduardo says, comfortably, "Lies and blasphemy," and Mark takes another bite himself, and thinks about saying it again, saying it right, but he can't get it out a second time._ _

__Mark would like to know exactly when he became this sham of a human being, but he thinks he's got a pretty clear grasp on that cake-covered timeline already_ _

__Afterwards, Mark dries the dishes under duress and shamelessly ogles Eduardo's forearms as he rolls his shirt-sleeves up to wash the giant stew pot. Eduardo keeps up a running commentary of how Mark _should_ be drying the dishes, with a glint in his eye, and Mark ignores him because he is an adult and can definitely not _dry plates badly_ , and points out imaginary bits of stew stuck to the pot to make Eduardo get his arms wet again._ _

__Eduardo says, as Mark is about to sack out on the couch and idle with the profile update some more, "I made _caipirinhas_ , if you want some," and Mark groans._ _

__"Stop speaking Portuguese," he says, flopping down onto the couch cushions. "I am too full to have sex with you."_ _

__"Oh yeah?" says Eduardo, raising an eyebrow in a way that can only spell trouble and/or orgasm in Mark's immediate future._ _

__"Yes," says Mark, turning his face into the side of the couch. "Go away."_ _

__Eduardo lifts Mark's feet up so he can sit down too, and then leans over, with obvious intent._ _

__"Go _away_ ," Mark repeats, childishly, helplessly. "I am too full for this."_ _

__"I'm not doing anything," says Eduardo, which is a lie, because he is pushing up the hem of Mark's t-shirt, sliding a warm hand onto Mark's stomach._ _

__Mark makes this little unbidden noise, a sort of choked moan. "I'm not a cat," he says, as Eduardo rubs circles onto Mark's skin. "Go - "_ _

__"Away?" asks Eduardo, not stopping._ _

__"Yes," says Mark, but he rolls his hips up to mean no._ _

__Eduardo leans down closer, putting his mouth on the hollow of Mark's throat. " _Vai embora_?" he asks. " _Vai embora, por favor_?"_ _

__Mark groans. "That's cheating too," he accuses, and Eduardo smiles against his skin and says, "Yep."_ _

__"Ugh," says Mark, rolling properly onto his back. "Fine. But I'm not doing any of the work."_ _

__"I cooked," says Eduardo, teasing, dipping his hand lower so Mark's breath stutters._ _

__"Yeah, well, I washed the dishes."_ _

__Eduardo slides his hand over the front of Mark's boxers. "You _dried_ the dishes," he says. "It's not the same thing."_ _

__"Fuck, Wardo," Mark says, shifting, "I - don't care about - the - the - "_ _

__Eduardo is mouthing at the top of Mark's thigh, cupping Mark through his boxers. Mark is too full, and too turned on to keep talking._ _

__"About the what?" Eduardo asks, because he is a constant source of misery in Mark's life and will not just get him off already so Mark can maybe nap for a couple hours and then code through the night._ _

__Mark is breathless already, which is dignified. "About the fucking dishes, okay," he says, tetchily, and then, "Jesus, _fuck_ ," when Eduardo pushes the waistband of Mark's boxers down and spits on his palm, starts jerking Mark off in earnest. Mark tries not to choke on his tongue._ _

__"How can you _move_?" he asks, clutching at the couch cushions, at Eduardo's shoulder. "How can you eat so much and still be able to do - fucking _hell - anything_?"_ _

__Eduardo just smirks, which, well, _fuck him_ , and leans down to kiss him, and his mouth tastes like feijoada and a slight burn of alcohol - Mark must remember to have some of the _caipirinhas_ too -- and Mark makes this incredibly dignified whine, and cants his hips up._ _

__Eduardo twines the fingers of his free hand in with Mark's, held over his head against the couch arm. He strokes the curve of Mark's palm, thumbs over the veins in his wrist at the same time as the vein on Mark's dick until Mark is twitching, and swearing at him, full, and stupid, and needing. He has sensitive hands._ _

__"You are _such_ a cheat," he says, thrusting into Eduardo's grip in case it makes him take the fucking hint already, and Eduardo grins at him and bites a little at his earlobe -- and, okay, Mark is so full and so over-sensitive that it feels like he's been _drugged_ or something, and so he cannot be responsible for any lack of stamina he might display by just coming all over Eduardo's hand._ _

__"Shut up," he grumbles, as Eduardo grins smugly down at him. "I am not reciprocating. I am lying here. Go away."_ _

__"You said that before," Eduardo reminds him, leaning down against him regardless of the mess on Mark's stomach, "but I don't think you meant it."_ _

__"I did," Mark lies, but he tips his chin up obligingly so Eduardo can kiss him, and then he shifts a thigh in between Eduardo's legs and flexes, and Eduardo groans into Mark's mouth._ _

__It turns out that Mark is not too full for this after all._ _

__//_ _

__The _feijoada_ leaves endless leftovers, that Mark watches Eduardo portion out and freeze with some bemusement, and then its component ingredients leave fucktons of food in the fridge. There's barely any room for the orange juice. Mark does not care about this especially, but Eduardo gets weirdly intense about vitamin C, and vitamins in general, and starts getting fidgety and rearranging the fridge if there isn't enough space in it when in any sensible person's opinion (Mark's), if Eduardo had fewer squashable healthy items in there and more, say, cans of Red Bull, he would also be able to stop frowning into a refrigerator and have more sex, which is clearly a superior lifestyle choice._ _

__Mark's phone goes at about one in the afternoon the day after the _feijoada_ feast, and he gets it out of his pocket, his concentration broken, irritated and squinting at the screen._ _

__It's an event notification that Mark definitely did not program in._ _

___STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD,_ it says. _IT IS LUNCHTIME NOW.__ _

__Mark spends a moment with his mind still locked in lines of code, debating the possibility that he's started hallucinating, and then a second alarm makes his phone vibrate again._ _

___I MEAN IT, MARK. I HAVE GOT TO GET RID OF THIS FOOD. YOU ARE NOT BRINGING THIS BACK WITH YOU, THERE IS NO SPACE IN THE FRIDGE._ _ _

__Mark thinks about padding barefoot from the bathroom to the bed last night, catching Eduardo looking guilty for no good reason and leaning away from the bedside table on Mark's side of the bed. He'd meant to say something at the time, but Eduardo had reached up and tugged him down onto the mattress by the towel around his hips, and it hadn't seemed important anymore._ _

__His phone goes a third time._ _

___DO NOT GO BACK TO WORK BEFORE EATING SOMETHING. CHECK YOUR BACKPACK RIGHT NOW._ _ _

__Mark unzips the front pocket of his backpack, and there's a familiar-looking Tupperware box staring him down inside._ _

__Mark goes to heat it up in the microwave in the break-room, and walks back to his office by Dustin's desk, deliberately. Dustin follows with his nose, like a cartoon bloodhound, until Mark cracks a grin and slams the office door in his face._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: WHAT IS THAT AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME 

__MARK THAT SMELLS LIKE STEWY HEAVEN_ _

__LIKE IF HEAVEN HAD SWAMPS THEY WOULD BE MADE OF THAT STEW_ _

__LIKE WILLY WONKA'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY ONLY IT WOULD BE DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ'S ANGELIC FOOD EMPORIUM AND EVERYTHING WOULD BE EDIBLE AND YOU COULD NOT SLAM A DOOR IN MY FACE BECAUSE I COULD JUST EAT MY WAY THROUGH TO YOU AND YOUR OBSCENELY DELICIOUS CARE-PACKED LUNCHES WHICH I AM NOT COMMENTING ON OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MY HEART BECAUSE I AM A GOOD FRIEND OF THE KIND THAT WOULD SHARE FOOD WITH ANOTHER FRIEND IF THEY WERE FOODLESS AND I HAD TUPPERWARE-CRADLED DELIGHTS. HYPOTHETICALLY._ _

__UGH WHY IS YOUR LIFE THIS WAY I AM A MUCH NICER AND HUNGRIER PERSON_ _

__THE ONLY SWAMPS IN MY LIFE ARE FILLED WITH EVEN HUNGRIER CROCODILES._ _

___GIVE_  
ME  
BACK  
MY  
STEW  
SWAMPS 

__I WILL SET MY SWAMPY CROCODILES ON YOU._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: go feed dustin 

__You know what happens when he doesn't get regular meals._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I am not his keeper 

__You are the last person who should lecture people about food._ _

__And also I am not responsible for Dustin's eating habits. Dustin is responsible for Dustin's eating habits._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: he's talking about hungry swamp crocodiles again 

__do I need to remind you about that halo weekend? because I would have thought you would be the one to remember that._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: the fucking swamp crocodiles 

__if he was better at halo that wouldn't have happened. I still don't think it was unfair that I won because he couldn't stop for food and I am capable of eating whilst gaming and also possess superior halo skills._ _

__and superior skills in most things._ _

__and am just better._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: I am not the passive-aggressive dubious relationship outlet you are looking for 

__he also wants a swamp of stew._ _

__please just make sure he is not making one on his desk. I mean, I don't actually care, I just don't want any more emails about fictional reptiles._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: crisis averted 

__he's had a sandwich. there are no reptiles in the coding area, repeat, no reptiles in the coding area. go about your business._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: I am terminally single 

__please fire chris so he can be my personal chef._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: not terminally enough 

__I may put arsenic in the next sandwich._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: seconded 

__I would give you an alibi_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: it's like fatal attraction but with sandwiches. DON'T BE A BREAD BOILER, CHRIS, THE BREAD WILL GO ALL SOGGY BUT I WOULD EAT IT ANYWAY AND THAT WOULD BE HORRIBLE. 

__no-one appreciates me_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: you are revolting  
do you know what I would appreciate, dustin? 

__some peace and quiet._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: I will knock your heads together 

__make up_ _

__shut up_ _

__I am busy._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: which heads? 

__LOLLLLL KIDDING PLEASE DON'T HURT ME_ _

__CHRISTOPHER I WILL SELF-FLAGELLATE FOR YOUR LOVE_ _

__?????_ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: THIS IS A RECORDED EMAIL; CHRIS IS BUSY POURING CHLOROX INTO HIS EYES. 

__never say anything like that again, dustin, and we can be friends again_ _

__I may make you sign something to that effect_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: BUT YOUR EYES ARE TOO PRETTY TO BE CHLOROXED DDD: 

__anything you say, christopherrrrr, you are the light of my life_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: I am going to fire you both and just hire monkeys 

__shush now. working._ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: I'M THE KING OF THE SWINGERS, YEAH 

__THE JUNGLE VIP_ _

__I'VE REACHED THE TOP_ _

__AND HAD TO STOP_ _

__AND THAT'S WHAT'S BOTHERING ME_ _

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: OH OOHBEE DOO OOH OOH 

__I WANNA BE LIKE YOU OOH OOH_ _

__I WANNA TALK LIKE YOU_ _

__WALK LIKE YOU_ _

__TOO OOH OOH_ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com  
subj: I hate both of you, you are ideally suited. 

__but for the sake of completion (DUSTIN THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT WHY DO I EVEN KNOW THIS)_ _

__YOU'LL SEE IT'S TRUE OOH OOH_ _

__AN APE LIKE ME EE EE_ _

__CAN LEARN TO BE_ _

__HUUUUMAN TOO_ _

__

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD 

__I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR._ _

__

__//_ _

__The phone reminders keep coming, most days, and it becomes a little pattern, something entirely too sickening for Mark to really have expected to like, but he does, like an easy way out in code when he could push it further, guilty that it's out of character, and then defiant and pleased about it anyway._ _

___EAT MY PIE_ , is one of the reminders Eduardo sets up, and Mark actually genuinely _chokes_ laughing. Dustin is there for that one, and gives Mark this look like he has surpassed even his ability for judgment on Mark's intrepid adventure into a relationship, and instead just gapes wordlessly and a little proud as Mark brings out a slice of apple pie from his backpack, and a little plastic fork to eat it with._ _

__He does, of course, make up for this uncharacteristic show of silence and support by leaning in fast like fucking Scooby Doo or something to inhale half the slice in one gulp before Mark can get it to his mouth, and Mark stabs the back of his hand repeatedly with the plastic fork._ _

__A much better instance of Mark's food being stolen happens when Eduardo _makes pizza_ one night, since apparently Mark has discovered the holy grail of boyfriends -- and Eduardo leans in and bites the corners off the piece Mark is already biting into. It's slightly too Lady and the Tramp for Mark's comfort, and when he says this, Eduardo laughs, and steals more of Mark's piece despite already having eaten his own, and asks when the fuck he ever watched a Disney movie in his life. _ _

__Mark says, "Dustin," in a tone that cannot even compare to the pain of having Dustin bodily sit on his legs and force him to watch Disney movies to _bring joy and happiness to his stunted, keyboard-based existence_ (a direct quote), and Eduardo laughs some more, and suggests they watch more cartoons, if it means he can steal Mark's food and get away with it. Sharing pizza slices sort of works out, because Mark eats his point-first, like a regular person, and Eduardo eats his from the crust in, which Mark points out is an abomination. Eduardo shrugs, and says he likes having the best bit to look forward to; Mark likes having the best bit _now_. _ _

__The slices of leftover pizza that Mark finds in a Tupperware box in his backpack the next day have a little cartoon dog drawn out in a swirl of tomato purée on the tops, and Mark is so determined that Dustin will not see and comment on this that he gulps them down fast enough to get indigestion._ _

__He texts Eduardo _am I Lady or the Tramp?_ and Eduardo sends back, _well, you're no Lady_ , and Mark finds himself surfing the kids section on Netflix before he's fully aware of what he's doing. Dustin has apparently stepped his stalking game up, because five minutes later, while Mark is in the middle of deleting his browser history, his phone bleeps with _I FUCKING KNEW YOU LIKED DISNEY MOVIES REALLY OMG MARK DO YOU AND WARDO SHARE SPAGHETTI?????????__ _

___Pizza_ , Mark sends, feeling charitable, and then, less altruistically, _which you don't get, because you are single and chef-less.__ _

___WHY DO YOU SAY SUCH HORRIBLE THINGS TO ME DDDDDD:_ Dustin replies, and Mark grins despite himself, and forwards it to Eduardo._ _

__Mark had forgotten that he is dating a sap, and the next time they have pizza, Eduardo sends in a slice for Dustin. It has a D on it, in olives, and a little tomato purée smiley face. Mark hands it over in silent horror, and Dustin eats it so close to Mark's face that Mark actually gets a little flecked with pizza spit._ _

__"Tell your boyfriend I love him," Dustin proclaims, cheerfully, on his way back to work, and Mark thinks, _not before I tell him I do_._ _

__//_ _

__It is actually making Mark anxious, now, that he hasn't said it yet. He's not used to keeping something in. He thinks about being drunk and angry and blogging, and ranting on the internet about Erica Albright's bra size, and then about more recently being drunk at New Year's, _I've never been this happy_ , but he also thinks that he really doesn't want to be drunk when he says this, but he still can't quite get it out sober._ _

__There must be a middle way, somewhere. There must be something Mark can _do_. He's always been a little bit better at gestures, like not commenting when Dustin fell asleep on Chris's lap in the middle of finals. That was a pretty big gesture right there._ _

__One night, Mark has pushed his laptop aside so he can make out with Eduardo on the couch, and Eduardo is writhing against him in this ridiculous, eager way, and Mark pulls back for a second, panting, weighing up his options. He could make Eduardo wait, get him on his back and begging, but Eduardo's eyes are dark and lidded, his mouth licked wet, and he's hard in his jeans without Mark even having laid a hand on him yet, and Mark thinks, fuck it, there'll be other times, and shoves him flat out on his back, and kneels between his thighs, getting Eduardo's jeans undone with one hand and keeping another on his chest, possessive, positioning._ _

__Eduardo comes with a hand in Mark's hair and Mark's name on his lips, panting something in Portuguese that definitely doesn't sound appropriate for wider use, and _that is it_ , there is Mark's gesture._ _

__Because, as much as Mark hates to agree with Dustin at all, languages are _hot_._ _

__Mark swallows, and decides he should take up language classes or something. In all the spare time that he has._ _

__Okay, fine. Plan B._ _

__//_ _

__"So," Eduardo says, "essentially you want me to teach you dirty Portuguese."_ _

__"Yes," says Mark._ _

__Eduardo shrugs. "Sounds like a plan."_ _

__//_ _

__Eduardo straddles Mark's thighs and maps out his body, leaning down all dark-eyed and serious to kiss at the crook of Mark's elbow, the curve of his neck, the top of his chest, _o cotovelo, o pescoço, o peitoral_ , and then Mark shifts and pants and flips them over so Eduardo is on his back and Mark can show him just how good his memory is, sucking hickeys into Eduardo's skin, muttering _peitoral, pescoço, cotovelo_ until Eduardo shudders, and pins Mark back down._ _

__"Fuck," Eduardo whispers, later, as Mark is shuddering hard, on the edge. " _Caralho_." He bites at Mark's jaw, mouths up behind his ear. "Say it."_ _

__" _Caralho_ ," Mark grits out, and Eduardo smiles wide and pleased against his throat, and says, "Good," and Mark comes all over his hand._ _

__They have matching bruises, the next day, waking up and wincing in the exact same ways, and Mark follows Eduardo into the shower to run his hands over every one of them, and whispers the Portuguese in a sleep-rough voice, inaudible over the running water. Eduardo shivers like he can hear it anyway._ _

__It's like looking at his first coded script running by itself, like stepping back from a whiteboard and looking at Friendster, MySpace, _NewCo_ in his own marker pen thick handwriting -- a first step, the first pushed key. Mark presses his mouth to the bitten echo of it on Eduardo's skin, and thinks, _more_._ _

__//_ _

__" _Actual_ Portuguese?"_ _

__Mark nods._ _

__Eduardo touches the tips of his fingers to the hickey near where collarbone becomes shoulder, tugging absent-mindedly on the neck of his shirt._ _

__"Okay."_ _

__//_ _

__Mark is good with languages, programming and otherwise, but Portuguese is proving problematic. He's got high-school Spanish, so he can thicken up his voice, shape his mouth around the Latin pronunciation, but his "r"s come out slightly French, and he thinks he might be veering towards Russian at some point. Eduardo is endlessly patient, which Mark finds incredibly annoying, because if he were teaching someone such a base part of himself, like code, and they didn't fucking get it, he would not just smile at them and lace his fingers through theirs and get them to try it again. He would stop teaching them._ _

__Eduardo does not stop teaching Mark._ _

__When it's the middle of the night and the code is stuck in Mark's fingertips, on the tip of his tongue, behind a mental corner he can't peer around, he sets his laptop aside and reaches for the phrase book. He drums his fingers on the edges of the pages, like typing, because he works best with his hands, remembers better that way, with his fingers moving. He learns the tourist crap like _com licença, onde fica o banheiro_? and then introductory stuff in case he's somehow involved in a conversation about himself while haphazardly trying to buy bread. It is at this point he starts eying the phrase book with some aggravation, but he learns it anyway, for the sake of doing the thing properly; _eu sou dos Estados Unidos_ , as if that wouldn't be patently obvious from his mangled, accent heavy, pronunciation -- and then, rendering the whole exercise potentially pointless, _me desculpe, mas eu não entendo Portugûes completamente, você fala inglês?__ _

__It does not particularly matter to Mark whether the person he is having this extended hypothetical conversation with speaks English or not: that is not the point of this endeavor. He learns it anyway, muttering it to himself under his breath as he showers, mutters the other phrases as he works, or when he can't sleep, and sometimes he feels Eduardo smile against his shoulder blades, pressed up behind him in the bed._ _

__That is the point._ _

__He gets Eduardo to test him, drawing up his own vocab lists like he's back in high school and stumbling over _por_ and _para_ ; the French _passé simple_ ; the Latin subjunctive. Mark has a great short term memory, so Eduardo starts asking him random words when he thinks he's catching him off guard, and Mark fires the English back to all sorts of things, to _o açúcar_ if Eduardo is still rinsing his hands from piping frosting swirls onto cupcakes, to _você tá cansado_ if he thinks Mark is dragging at the end of an evening, to _bom dia_ in a whisper, pillow-close, when Mark wakes slowly up on a weekend morning._ _

__It's like learning code for the first time, something new opening itself up for him to wade through. It feels like he is opening _himself_ up, like he is stepping towards a different him, word by word. It's frightening, but code scared him, when he was a high school fresher and awed by it still, and now he is CEO and co-founder of Facebook, the youngest billionaire in the world._ _

__When the code is slow in coming at work, sometimes, he forces himself to take a break, pull himself out of the frustration of endlessly repeating lines of already discarded work and pick up the phrase book, so worn in so little time that the spine is starting to crack. He types that out instead, learning the keyboard accent shortcuts, and it feels like he's coding Eduardo, the lilt of his voice at Mark's fingertips, like his keyboard gives out octaves and pitch rather than letters. It helps him think._ _

__Chris comes in one afternoon to ask for something and sees Mark with his nose in the phrase book, and he goes away and brings Dustin to look._ _

__"Oh," says Dustin, in this funny sort of voice, as they both stand behind Mark's shoulder and watch him switch between irritating tourist Portuguese sentences and lines of code, mixing the two, but Mark ignores them. He remembers looking over at Eduardo standing by the Facebook Wall; this feels like that, like he's got two things to call his own and he's knitting them together._ _

__Chris comes and squeezes his shoulder before he takes Dustin out of the room again, and Mark glances up to roll his eyes out of habit and tell Chris to fuck off, and when he looks back at the computer screen, he reads both languages as one, run together._ _

__//_ _

__Dustin perches on the edge of Mark's desk while Mark is taking his Eduardo-mandated lunch break and picks up the Portuguese phrase book, thumbing through it._ _

__"Huh," he says, as Mark is halfway through a mouthful of cafeteria tuna salad -- there were no leftovers that morning, and Mark's phone alert had said _GO TO THE CAFETERIA, LAUREN WILL TELL ME IF YOU DON'T_ , and Mark hadn't doubted that or the obviously terrifying repercussions in the slightest -- and Mark looks up, in a way he likes to think is not unduly paranoid._ _

__"What?"_ _

__Dustin rifles through the pages again and then rests the spine on his palm and lets the book fall open where it wants, where the spine has broken, over-used._ _

__"Huh," he says again._ _

__If there is anything more alarming than Dustin's voice being completely even, Mark does not want to know about it._ _

__"Dustin," he says, again, letting the edge creep into his voice, "what is it?"_ _

__Dustin closes the book, runs his thumb along the edges of the pages, and lets it fall open again._ _

__" _What_?" Mark demands._ _

__Dustin holds the book out to him, not saying anything._ _

___Terms of endearment_ , it says, and then, in bold, right under that: _eu te amo_._ _

__Mark snatches the book back, smearing tuna all over the cover._ _

__//_ _

__Mark is running later than usual one morning near the end of January, and he can hear the hum of the morning rush in the bakery under his feet as he hops about putting socks on and trying not to fall over couch arms while he simultaneously tries to yank on a tee and zip up his jeans, crotchety with morning._ _

__He pauses just before he rounds the corner from the stairwell into the bakery proper, putting his backpack on the ground while he wrestles with his fleece, both the arms inside-out where Eduardo had hauled it off him the night before. It smells good in the bakery, coffee and freshly baked cake, and even in a rush, Mark has to stop to breathe it in. As much as he hates to admit it, it sort of calms him down, now, like breathing against Eduardo's neck when they'd not seen other over Hanukkah. Code doesn't smell of anything, which is one point in Eduardo's favour. Not that he's in competition with code, or anything ridiculous like that that certain factions of the Facebook staff might be intimating around the water cooler, just. Mark's just saying. Eduardo smells good._ _

__When Eduardo gets to the end of a line of customers, he comes over to the foot of the stairs where Mark is still trying to navigate his arm into his fleece, and passes him a coffee._ _

__" _Obrigado_ ," Mark says, without really thinking, mind still on the vocab list he'd assigned himself to go over in the shower, wrestling with the sleeve of his fleece, and Eduardo makes this choked, pleased little noise, pushes him against the wall of the stairwell and kisses him hard, sliding his hands up under Mark's tee without any hesitation. Mark almost loses his balance trying not to drop his coffee and stay on the stairs at the same time, but he gets a hand on Eduardo's waist, steadies himself, and kisses back. Eduardo's hands bracket Mark's ribs, code-easy to understand, like Mark is the only variable and Eduardo is keeping him the same. Mark tugs at Eduardo's hips, fitting his fingers into the belt loops on his stupid formal pants. The banister is digging into the small of Mark's back, but Eduardo is biting Mark's lower lip a little, dragging his tongue over the light indent of teeth, and Mark could basically be standing on hot coals right now and probably not really care. _ _

__Not that he'd especially like to test that theory._ _

__California is hanging on to winter like it's never had one before and it's fucking freezing outside -- all the bedroom windows were condensed when Mark woke up, and file that under things Dustin never needs to know -- and so they can tell when the bakery door opens, an eddy of chill air finding its way to the stairwell, nipping at their skin._ _

__Eduardo rests his head against Mark's shoulder, panting a little._ _

__Mark bats at him. "Go serve people," he says. "You have a job to do."_ _

__"Shan't," Eduardo says, tightening his fists in the front of Mark's fleece, still hanging half off his arm._ _

__"You're supposed to be the sensible one," Mark reminds him._ _

__Eduardo leans his head into the crook of Mark's neck. "You're supposed to be at a shareholders' meeting in half an hour," he says. "But I don't see you going anywhere."_ _

__"Yeah, well," says Mark, clutching at Eduardo's back in a way he will definitely deny later. "You're not moving either."_ _

__Eduardo kisses him, says, against Mark's mouth, "Yes, I am," and Mark groans, and says, "That is _cheating_ , Wardo, you _know_ that isn't - " and then shuts up, because Eduardo starts pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the line of Mark's neck, and Mark has learned that if he tries to keep talking during that, his voice does something stupid he'd rather it didn't._ _

__The bakery door opens again._ _

__Eduardo keeps ignoring it._ _

__Mark wriggles away enough that his voice is steady when he says, "You have to go."_ _

__Eduardo doesn't look fit to go anywhere except to bed, right now, with Mark._ _

__"I do," Eduardo agrees, reluctantly, and Mark reaches up and straightens Eduardo's collar. Now Eduardo has a straight collar but he still looks like he's been making out in a stairwell. Mark has a sudden, irrational urge to stop him from going anywhere until he looks less like that, so other people can't see him the way Mark gets to see him, on the edge of debauched._ _

__Mark reaches out for him again, and he doesn't know what he was going to do, but it doesn't really matter, as Chris's voice suddenly breaks through into the stairwell._ _

__Of course it's Chris._ _

__"Get your delinquent ass out here, Mark," he shouts. "I know you're there. I can hear you breathing."_ _

__"I'm busy," Mark yells back, immediately descending into ridiculousness because apparently his life is just like that now, and Eduardo rolls his eyes, and rights Mark's sleeve. Mark works his arm into it, sullenly._ _

__"I thought you said I had to go," Eduardo says, grinning at Mark, and Mark says, "Shut up."_ _

__Chris shouts, "Mark, if I do not see you out here in the next thirty seconds I am sending Dustin back there to drag you out."_ _

__"Hi, Mark!" shouts Dustin._ _

__Oh, excellent._ _

__Eduardo laughs, and shoves Mark out into the bakery._ _

__"Your commitment to your job is terrifying," Mark grumbles in Chris's direction, as Eduardo runs a hand through his hair and looks slightly sheepish under Chris's _I am not his keeper but by god he is not missing this meeting_ gaze, and Chris just shrugs, and grabs Mark unnecessarily hard by the elbow, and leads him to the door._ _

__Mark pauses in the doorway despite Chris's groan of frustration, and says, over his shoulder, to Eduardo, " _Até mais tarde_ ," and even from his distance away, he can see Eduardo go a fast, promising red._ _

__It's even worth listening to Dustin flail endlessly on at him all the way to work about bilingual romance, just to remember that look on Eduardo's face._ _

__//_ _

__Mark picks up the phrase book again one night, when Eduardo is sleeping, and lets it fall open where it likes._ _

___eu te amo_ , the book insists._ _

__Mark frowns down at the page, and then, suddenly, thinks about Eduardo bending the pages wide open as he tests Mark, the spine bending with them, about Eduardo always leaving the book face down when he's done, about the way Eduardo looks at him, kisses the back of his neck when they're starting to fall asleep, curled up together in the duvet._ _

__He thinks about the way he thumbs to this page himself, sometimes, when no-one's looking._ _

__He puts the book down, and if he's shaking, well, fuck it, there's no-one there to see._ _

__He wires in, and thinks about nothing except Perl for a good three hours, and then resurfaces disorientated and tired. When he clambers into bed next to Eduardo, Eduardo reaches out a hand in his sleep to pull him closer, and Mark nestles down easily, lining himself up in front of Eduardo, draping Eduardo's arm over his waist._ _

__Okay._ _

__He can think about everything else later._ _

__//_ _

__One night, when Mark is half-asleep with Eduardo curled around him, knees to the backs of Mark's own, Eduardo tells him about it._ _

__Eduardo tells him about his father wanting him to go into business -- Mark thinks, _well, you run a bakery, that's a business_ , but he stays quiet -- and how he got into Harvard but couldn't make himself go. _ _

__"I wanted to do what I _loved_ ," he says, against the back of Mark's neck, and his breath catches, and Mark is flushing hot, not knowing what he should be doing, and understands. _ _

__"Yeah," he says, uselessly, and he fumbles behind him for Eduardo's hand, holding on tight._ _

__When Eduardo swallows, Mark feels it against the tops of his shoulders._ _

__"What did you do instead?" he asks, quietly. He can do this. If Eduardo wants to do this, Mark can make himself okay at this._ _

__"Culinary school," he says, and he sounds quietly proud. Mark squeezes his fingers, because he doesn't know what to say._ _

__Eduardo tells him that his father still paid -- "He said the money was there for me to go to school, so I might as well use it." -- but never approved. Mark thinks about all the times he's talked to Eduardo about Harvard, off-hand, and wonders if Eduardo has been thinking about this every time. Mark doesn't normally feel like a dick for things he's said in the past, but he really, really does now._ _

__But he still doesn't know what to say back._ _

__"It's," says Eduardo, in this odd, full voice, and Mark is terrified, suddenly, and angry, because Eduardo should never have to sound like that, "it's not that he doesn't love me, I know he does, it's just -- "_ _

__Mark stays very still, in case Eduardo is only talking about this because it is dark and he can't see Mark's face._ _

__"It's just," says Eduardo, swallowing again, "I want him to be proud, you know? And I don't know if he is."_ _

__That, right there, is what Mark has been waiting for. He's -- he's sort of been waiting for this moment, for Eduardo to tell him whatever he has been hanging onto, and he's -- oh, god, this could go incredibly badly, and is probably the most stupid, trivializing thing Mark could do at this point, but he's going to do it anyway._ _

__"Hang on," he says, scrambling abruptly out of the bed, flicking on the light, and Eduardo props himself up on his elbows. Mark can't look him in the eye right now, because Eduardo looks a little raw around the edges, and Mark is trying to - he's trying -_ _

__"Hang _on_ ," he repeats, stumbling to the door, to his backpack on the couch. It's in there, it's been in there since Hanukkah, tucked in the pocket at the back that Eduardo doesn't touch, the one with the back-up laptop power lead in it. It's crumpled when Mark's fingers brush it, but it's in one piece._ _

__Mark goes back to the bedroom clutching the photo tight in his hand. Eduardo looks a little less wounded, and Mark sits next to him on the bed, looks down for a second at the picture he's holding. This is ridiculous, and possibly the sappiest gesture Mark has ever made, and entirely unnecessary and overblown and stupid, but it's the best idea he's got._ _

__In the picture, Mark is six years old and pale and scrawny, wearing cargo pants that cut off at the knee, a ratty striped tee, a wide-eyed smile and a fireman's helmet, much too big for him, falling down over one eye. He looks absolutely ecstatic. Mark has been trying to get hold of and destroy this picture for _years_. Instead, he hands it to Eduardo._ _

__Eduardo looks from it to Mark and back again a couple of times. His expression keeps flickering, and Mark can't tell what that means. He folds his arm across his chest, and waits._ _

__Eduardo says, in a funny, high-pitched voice. "Is this a picture of you as a six-year old?"_ _

__Mark nods._ _

__"I said," says Eduardo, disbelieving, "when you said you got stuck in the bathroom, I said - and then you said I could talk about it if I liked - and this is -"_ _

__Mark nods again. Oh, god, this _is_ stupid. He scowls down at the duvet like this whole situation is its fault._ _

__"I picked it up from home at Hanukkah," he says. "I thought -- I don't know, I thought you might like to see it. Or something. I don't know."_ _

__How do other people _do_ relationships? How has the human race survived? Mark wishes there was a button he could press to make this okay, to move on from this moment, but the universe stubbornly does not provide him with one. He can't code his way out of this one._ _

__He looks up again, when Eduardo hasn't said anything after a couple of minutes._ _

__Eduardo is still staring down at the photo. "You're wearing a fireman's helmet," he points out, like this fact isn't both perfectly obvious and burned into Mark's mind forever._ _

__"Yes," he says._ _

__"Why?"_ _

__Mark shrugs, and tucks his hands further up under his arms, defensive. "I liked fire-engines."_ _

__"I thought you liked computers," Eduardo says. His voice is easier to understand now, a tilt into gentle ribbing, out of level ambiguity. Mark relaxes a fraction; it's working._ _

__"I liked fire-engines too," Mark says. "I'm a complex person, Wardo, I contain multitudes."_ _

__Eduardo cannot keep his mouth in a straight line, and Mark watches it twitch in and out of a futilely repressed smile. "Multitudes of _fire-engines_?"_ _

__"Shut up," says Mark, champion of banter, feeling himself going red, but it's working, it's really working. Eduardo doesn't look closed up, or sad, or like he's waiting for someone's stupid approval; he's looking at Mark, just Mark, like he doesn't know what to say, but in a good way. Like he's happy, Mark thinks, which was the point of the stupid photo in the first place._ _

__Eduardo runs his thumbs along the bottom edge of the photo, staring at it like it's something precious. "Fire engines," he says, in this quiet little voice, and Mark is just not at all capable of doing these moments properly._ _

__"Okay," he says, abruptly. "Enough feelings. Let's have sex."_ _

__Eduardo looks up at him and laughs, but he lets Mark shove him back against the mattress and push his tee up so Mark can get his mouth against Eduardo's stomach, making his breath hitch. Eduardo tangles a hand in Mark's hair as Mark dips lower, which Mark is entirely on board with, but instead of pushing him down he pulls him up, and when Eduardo kisses him, it's not hungry, not a precursor, it's _gentle_. Mark's breath hitches too._ _

__"Thank you," Eduardo says, in the space between their mouths, and Mark is embarrassed by everything and especially the way Eduardo's hands are tender along Mark's sides, a brush of skin on skin, so he just says, "Shut up," again, in this weirdly thick voice, and Eduardo kisses him properly, hard, and the next time he gets his hand in Mark's hair, he is pressing him down, and Mark wants to go where he's bid._ _

__//_ _

__Eduardo starts toying around with Valentine's Day recipes in late January, and so he's spending more evenings in the bakery kitchen than he is on the couch with Mark, or combing through his accounting books while Mark pretends not to watch. Mark can just as easily code at the big bakery kitchen table, so he sits on one of the kitchen chairs and frowns down at the profile update that won't fall into shape while Eduardo patters about mixing things, dipping the knuckle of his pinky finger into batter to taste test it._ _

__It's getting Eduardo distracted, Valentine's Day, like when holiday season was just around the corner, and Eduardo's living room floor was strewn with pages from his scrapbook: scribbled recipe ideas, messy sketches of cookie designs, icing patterns. Eduardo keeps a small notebook in his pocket too and sometimes breaks off in the middle of conversations to write something down, his hand smudging the ink in his haste. Mark gets it, because sometimes he stops talking to code, doesn't finish sentences because he's thinking about dropped brackets and has to immediately read back through an afternoon's work. He gets the thrill of making something, of creation, but he's never really tried to bake, not since he was little and making latkes with his mother._ _

__Eduardo clearly loves it. Mark wants to understand what it is that he loves._ _

__"Show me," Mark blurts, and Eduardo turns round from where he's frowning absently down at two small bottles of food colouring, one red, one purple._ _

__"What?"_ _

__It is quite possible Mark hasn't thought this all the way through. "Show me how to make something," he says, fidgeting. "I want you to."_ _

__Eduardo is giving him this little half-smile, not uncertainly, just like he's trying not to. Mark watches his mouth fight itself, and wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so much of the time that it is actively interfering with his having other thoughts, which is inconvenient but also inconveniently unpreventable. He folds his arms, because this _cannot be difficult_ , it is _baking_ , and glares. Eduardo's smile breaks free properly and makes Mark's voice wobble when it shouldn't, inopportune, when he says, " _Show_ me."_ _

__"Okay," says Eduardo, still at full wattage. "What do you want to make?"_ _

__"I don't know," says Mark. "You're the baker, you decide."_ _

__"What do you like?"_ _

__"You," says Mark, bluntly. "Or I wouldn't be _baking_."_ _

__This should not be news, Mark feels, but Eduardo smiles so widely it's like he's hearing it for the first time. Maybe Mark hasn't said anything like that before, but he thinks it should have been obvious. Then he thinks, maybe Eduardo just liked hearing it too._ _

__Eduardo decides that Mark should make a cake, and he sets out the ingredients on the table, making sure to move Mark's laptop out of potential spillage distance._ _

__Eduardo stands behind Mark with his arms around Mark's waist as Mark measures out cupfuls of flour and sugar and butter, and when he's done, Mark surveys the amassed ingredients with some incredulity._ _

__"How are you so skinny?" Mark asks, turning to face him. "You make things like this all day, and you cook with, like, metric tons of butter, and you still wake me up by poking me with your hips."_ _

__Eduardo raises an eyebrow._ _

__Mark says, "Don't you dare say 'that's not all I could poke you with'."_ _

__Eduardo laughs, happy, throwing his head back. Mark watches the line of his throat, the set of his shoulders, the curve of his mouth. Fuck, he is in so fucking deep._ _

__"I don't know," Eduardo says, still smiling, tipping things into the mixing bowl. "High metabolism, work on my feet, stir endless amounts of cake batter."_ _

__Mark says, "That's not exercise," all skeptically, and Eduardo shoves the mixing bowl at him. Mark looks down at the butter and the sugar inside, falling all over each other and just not coalescing or whatever the fuck the baking term is, pure binary, no end result._ _

__Eduardo says, challenging, "Go on, then. Mix it."_ _

__Mark learns two things in the next couple of minutes: one, the correct term for combining butter and sugar is not _coalescing_ but _creaming_ , which Mark doesn't hesitate to point out is unnecessarily pornographic, and Eduardo goes a happy, fond red, and Mark thinks about coming in his jeans on Eduardo's kitchen floor; and, two, creaming stuff together is actually genuinely pretty fucking hard._ _

__"This is like _torture_ ," Mark insists, dramatically, still stubbornly working the wooden spoon around the bowl even though his upper arm muscles (Mark cannot in good conscience call them _biceps_ or _triceps_ , because he has seen himself in the mirror, and he does not look the same as he did when he had fencing practice keeping him in shape) are letting their displeasure with this activity loudly and anaerobically known. "How do you do this all day? Did someone force you? Do you secretly yearn to be a sedentary accountant but participated in an unfortunate set of naked photography sessions to put yourself through school and someone is blackmailing you into baking instead?"_ _

__Eduardo laughs, and snags the mixing bowl from Mark's hands. Mark would protest this, but he's too busy poking his arm to see if it still registers feeling beyond the burning ache of short-term overuse following a long stretch of being under-utilized._ _

__Mark watches with a frown as Eduardo creams the stuff together in an embarrassingly short amount of time._ _

__"What's next?"_ _

__Mixing in eggs goes well, until Eduardo says, "Careful it doesn't curdle," and Mark slams the bowl down on the side._ _

__"What the hell?" he asks. "Curdle?" Baking is apparently full of pitfalls._ _

__Eduardo peers over the rim, pokes the mixture with the tip of the spoon. "Yeah," he says, and Mark can't tell if he's faking. "Like that."_ _

__Mark grabs the spoon back. "How do I fix it?"_ _

__"Flour," Eduardo tells him, and gives him a sieve._ _

__Mark mixes that in too, and, okay, his arms do actually hurt. This is ridiculous. He tells Eduardo this, grumpily working the wooden spoon around the bowl._ _

__"You sit and code all day," Eduardo says. "I mean, you probably burn all your calories with the amount of caffeine you drink, but that's not exactly a work-out."_ _

__"I have strong fingers," Mark says, and he didn't even mean it like that, thinking about hours of unbroken code, fingers unceasing on the keyboard, but Eduardo goes a slow, shy red, and curls out this little grin, and Mark has to look away from him immediately so he doesn't just up-end the mixing bowl on him right there and then and have a lot of sticky, sugary sex and then maybe a second round in the shower, cleaning off._ _

__As it turns out, baking a cake leaves enough time to get Eduardo off against the fridge, which Mark considers a much better use of his hands than holding a wooden spoon, and he tells Eduardo this, pulling back and looking up from his knees._ _

__Eduardo looks down at him with slightly unfocused eyes, and says, a little breathless, "Fine, okay, you don't have to bake again, just - _fuck_ \- " as Mark gets his mouth back around him, curling a fist at the base so he can go fast and not worry about choking, and Eduardo makes a sound like _he_ might be choking when he comes._ _

__The oven timer goes off just as Eduardo has got his hand into Mark's sweats, and Mark swears, and thumps his head back against the fridge._ _

__He has to be the only person in the world who gets cockblocked by _cake_._ _

__Eduardo washes his hands and puts on a pair of oven-gloves, which Mark is careful to mock, and then slides the baking tray out of the oven as Mark comes over to peer over his shoulder, and --_ _

__"Oh my god, Mark," Eduardo says, straightening up to put the cake on the counter. "That looks good, that looks really good." He pauses. "Surprisingly."_ _

__Mark shrugs and feigns modesty, and Eduardo swats him with the oven-gloves._ _

__Apparently cake needs to cool down before it can be frosted, so there is another space of time for Eduardo to shove Mark into one of the kitchen chairs and drag his sweats down around his ankles, smiling up at him from between his thighs. Mark is getting so much more on board with this whole baking idea._ _

__He makes Eduardo frost the cake when it's cool enough, watches the quick flick of his wrist, the way he still pokes his tongue out a little when he's concentrating like Mark remembers from summer, and pretending not to stare over the top of his laptop screen. Finally, Eduardo puts his hands on his hips and steps back, and says, "Done," and loops an arm around Mark's waist, pulling him in to his side. Eduardo's arm has a little frosting on it too, from where he's brushed against the cake, and he gets it on Mark's hoodie, but Mark doesn't care at all._ _

__He eyes the cake, and thinks about it starting from nothing, from separate components, like the potential of creation in unpressed keys, about Eduardo brushing his elbow and bringing him a biscotti and setting him up a tab. Eduardo is the sort of person who looks like he's thinking these things all the time, reminiscence and metaphors, and Mark does not look it, or feel like he should be, but he is now, apparently. Eduardo has made him like that._ _

__This would probably be a good time to say it, right here, but Mark stays quiet and just lets Eduardo cut them both a slice of their cake._ _

__//_ _

__Mark doesn't get to sleep for a while that night._ _

__Eduardo is all tangled up in the duvet, lying on his stomach with his arms and legs flung out, starfish-style, across the bed. Mark is sort of confined to the edge, perilously close to moving the wrong minute muscle and tipping himself ass-first onto the floor, but he's awake, and not generally in the habit of letting himself fall off things, so he doesn't really mind. It's sort of like a movie, post-coital, when the characters seem to have one of those magic bed sheets that covers the woman to her neck but the guy only to his waist, and, okay, Eduardo is definitely attractive enough most of the time to be in a movie, but he is the least dignified sleeper Mark has ever seen, and he lived with Chris and Dustin through finals, so he's seen his fair share of unattractively zonked out guys. Eduardo has the duvet in this sort of full body Klingon grip, twisted up under one armpit and knotted somehow around his waist, one arm flung haphazardly half over the pillow and his face, one leg hanging over the side of the bed. He snores most nights, but not offensively. Mark is actually surprised by how little this bothers him, when he remembers ganging up with Chris to actually shove, like, wads of cotton wool up Dustin's nostrils just to try to _make the noise stop_._ _

__It really hits him here, listening to Eduardo snuffle into the pillows, that this is it. Eduardo is it. He has no back-up plan._ _

__And, okay, Mark is not actually used to having a back-up plan. It's just not something he thinks about. He tends to jump straight into whatever it is he's doing, because _he's_ doing it, so it's probably going to work out. Like, with Facebook, people kept asking him if he was going put ads on it, monetize it early to string out the maxed out credit cards he and Chris and Dustin were already straining, and he refused. That wasn't what Facebook was about: it was something bigger than commercials and billboards, something that was _Mark's_. He could make something good enough that it only needed to advertize itself. There was no back-up plan because it was always going to work out, to catch on, so he didn't need a fallback. This doesn't mean that he doesn't know that it's, whatever, the prudent thing to do, it just means he's secure enough, or arrogant enough, that he just doesn't do it._ _

__It's the middle of the night, and Eduardo is snoring next to him, and the light of the laptop on Mark's knee is starting to make Mark squint, tired, and he glances over at Eduardo, and doesn't _want_ a back-up plan. He just wants _this_._ _

__He looks at Eduardo lying there, face mashed into the gap between the pillows, half-hidden by his forearm, and loves him, and thinks, gut-deep, terrified and exhilarated all at once like reading the Facebook masthead on the live site for the first time, shivering from snow-wet socks, _oh, fuck: enough_._ _

__He's going to need some help._ _

__//_ _

__As soon as Mark sits down in the chair opposite Chris's desk, his phone buzzes. It's from Dustin. He ignores it._ _

__Chris is looking at him like he's gone mad, which is not a new experience._ _

__Mark takes a deep breath and hopes that this will be over as soon as it possibly can be._ _

__"I am going to ask you something," he says, staring hard at the edge of Chris' desk, "and then you can help and then we can never speak of this again. Okay?"_ _

__This is becoming a pattern._ _

__"What," says Chris, "the Masons have approached you? You belong to the Knights Templar? You're Dan Brown's illegitimate son? Give me something to work with here, Mark."_ _

__Mark's phone goes off again. It's Dustin again. He keeps ignoring it._ _

__"No," he scowls, mostly out of anticipatory humiliation. "Chris, this is - I'm - you - "_ _

__Well, this is off to a flying start._ _

__His phone buzzes again. Mark doesn't even check it this time._ _

__Chris's expression of tolerant exasperation shifts into something more serious. He leans forwards across his desk. Mark would mock him for being a cliché of every understanding friend in the universe were it not for the fact that he really fucking needs an understanding friend at this point, which is not something he really wants to admit to, but whatever. He's not going to get in his own way for this one. Eduardo is worth a little loss of pride._ _

__"Mark, what is it?"_ _

__Mark thinks _you're CEO, bitch, you can fucking ask this question, man the fuck up_ , and stares more at Chris's desk and says, "How - "_ _

__Mark's phone goes off again at the exact same time that the door flies open. Mark doesn't even need to turn around._ _

__"Don't you check your phone anymore?" Dustin asks, hanging in the doorway. "What if it there had been an emergency?"_ _

__"Is there an emergency?" Chris asks, warily._ _

__"No," says Dustin. "Not apart from the fact that you're apparently having secret meetings without me now. Which is pretty emergent. If you're me."_ _

__Mark slumps down in his chair._ _

__Chris says, "Emergent doesn't mean that."_ _

__Mark checks his phone while Dustin argues the case for language evolution and Chris starts up about evolution being a slow process and not something to be abused in nanoseconds by crazy people._ _

__Dustin's four messages read like this:_ _

___why are you in Chris' office and should I be?_ _ _

___seriously Mark_ _ _

___I could just come in you know, I am only refraining because your face looked all wobbly when you walked past_ _ _

___FINE don't answer me SURPRISE DUSTIN AWAYYYY._ _ _

__Sometimes it's really, really difficult for Mark to remember that Dustin is actually really intelligent._ _

__"Fine," he blurts, because Dustin shows no sign of going away soon and also because he really needs to stop this going round in his head before he explodes or just writes it out in code when he's deep in something important and ruins his website and also his life. "Look, um._ _

__Chris and Dustin have both turned to him, expectantly. Mark avoids their gaze with the skill born from years of practice._ _

__"If I, um," he says, "wanted to tell someone something important. How - how would I do that?"_ _

__Chris says, "Mark, I mean this in the nicest possible way because you are technically my boss, but you really, really don't have a problem telling people things."_ _

__Mark sighs. "No," he says, "it's - I - he."_ _

__Dustin's ears all but prick up. " _He_?" he says. "Like, _Eduardo_ he?"_ _

__Mark nods, with a kind of dread-based reluctance._ _

__Dustin makes some sort of strangled, incoherently delighted noise and clasps his hands together. "Oh my god," he says, obviously immediately seeing where this is going, because Mark's life is just cruel like that, apparently. "Oh my _god_ , Mark, are you - "_ _

__"I want to tell Eduardo I love him," Mark says, loudly, over the top of Dustin, who falls abruptly, unnaturally quiet. "How do I do that?"_ _

__Chris stares at him like he thinks he might just have hallucinated. This is not new either, but the soft, pleased smile threatening to unfold along with it definitely is._ _

__Mark goes spectacularly pink._ _

__"I didn't want Dustin to say it before I did," he mutters, which makes him feel even more like Reese Witherspoon than ever, and he kicks mulishly at the chair legs until he can look up again._ _

__"Well?" he demands, when neither Chris nor Dustin have responded in any way. "Come on, I have other things to be doing that don't make me want to die."_ _

__"I think you've killed Dustin," Chris says, slightly high-pitched, and Mark turns round and Dustin's face has actually become an emoticon._ _

__"Oh," says Dustin, slowly, in the tones of someone gearing up to explode verbal confetti all over the wreckage of Mark's dignity, "my _GOD_." He pauses. "Mark! The robot's fallen in love! They look and feel like us! There are twelve Mark models and they're all in love with bakers!"_ _

__"Dustin," says Mark, somewhere between warning and just pure horror, but Dustin ploughs on._ _

__"It's so perfect! Because he looks like _that_ and he makes you go all soft and gentle and wobbly - "_ _

__"Dustin," says Mark, with a touch more outrage than before._ _

__" - and normally you look all cylon but when you talk about him you don't, apart from right now when I am technically talking about Eduardo but you look like you might be gathering storm clouds to lightning me into shutting up, but you are _foiled_ , Marky Mark, because lightning never strikes the same place twice!"_ _

__Chris says, "I do feel the need to interject here that lightning hasn't struck you _once_ yet."_ _

__Dustin says, "I am too awesome for lightning to bother me."_ _

__"But," says Chris, diligently, "you just said that lightning never strikes in the same place twice. If it hasn't stuck you yet, then - "_ _

__"Silence," Dustin demands. "I am also too awesome for logic."_ _

__Mark reminds himself that this is definitely a conversation he needs to have, and so he definitely cannot get up and leave and also barricade himself somehow in his office so no-one can come in and say horrifying things to him for a while._ _

__"Am I just supposed to say it?" he interrupts. "Is that how it works?"_ _

__Chris stops side-eying Dustin and brings his attention back to Mark. "It doesn't work any particular way," he says, which, great, how helpful. "If you love him," - Dustin squeaks again, in the background - "just tell him."_ _

__"When?" Mark demands. "Is there a, a moment? Do I need to sky-write it or something? Is there a _wrong way_ to say it?"_ _

__Dustin actually sounds like he might pass out. Mark really vehemently wishes he would._ _

__On the other end of the humiliation spectrum, Chris looks so understanding that Mark kind of wants to hit him. No-one hits the understanding friend in the movies. Mark hates films, and real life, and the vast, guideless gulf between the two._ _

__"I can't tell you when to say it," Chris says, gently. "You have to do that part."_ _

__If there is a way for this conversation to get more horrendous, Mark cannot think of it. Happily, Chris immediately provides him with the answer._ _

__"But, Mark," he says, out of nowhere. "You can't just say it. You have to really mean it. This is - it's not - you have to really, really mean it. And I think you do, but - "_ _

__Mark fixes him with a stare that hopefully encompasses his utter disdain for Chris's implications to the contrary. "Of course I fucking mean it," he says, letting his embarrassment translate into irritation. "Why the fuck else would I be having this excruciating conversation with you?"_ _

__"Point taken," Chris says._ _

__Mark's head feels like it did when he first put his fingers to his keyboard to type out the first lines of code for theFacebook, questions he needs to answer and not able to do everything at once. "I," he says, which is not a sentence, so he clears his throat, irritated at himself, and tries again. "I'm learning Portuguese," he says, to his hands. "I let him teach me how to _bake_ ," - Dustin makes some alarmingly rapturous noises behind him - "and, and, I still don't know how to _say it_."_ _

__He also doesn't know how to make his voice stop sounding like that, so he just scowls some more, and folds his arms across his chest._ _

__Dustin puts a hand on his shoulder. Mark tenses up immediately._ _

__"Hey," Dustin says, in a very un-Dustin tone of voice. "Mark. It's fine. It's really fine. You've got this."_ _

__"I have _Facebook_ ," Mark mutters, calming down. _ _

__"That too," Dustin says. "But I am telling you, even you genuinely cannot fuck this one up. It's basically impossible." He hesitates._ _

__"What?" Mark says, twisting round in the chair to face him. "By all means, drag this out more, that will help you keep your job."_ _

__Dustin glances at Chris, and Mark says, " _What_?"_ _

__Dustin says, "We've seen the way he looks at you, okay? I am beyond sure you don't need me to tell you this, but he - "_ _

__"I know," Mark says, fast, before Dustin can finish. He looks down at his hands again. He can't help smiling. It makes him _feel_ gentle, when he thinks about it, when he thinks that Eduardo -- okay, so, if normal people feel like this all the time, if this is what has inspired a vast array of horrible, insipid, radio-abusing songs, he doesn't know how modern civilization functions. It essentially makes him want to narrow his world down to a dark room, a bright screen and an unlit keyboard, so he pushes his chair back and stands up because he is in danger of growing ovaries if this goes on any longer. _We've seen the way he looks at you_. Mark has seen the way Eduardo looks at him, and it has driven him to have this insipid conversation. He wants his keyboard back, and also his sanity._ _

__"Right," he says, not looking at either of them, "great, okay, good talk, see you in the next millennium when I can think about this without wanting to throw myself out of a window."_ _

__"That's my boy," says Chris, and Mark slams the door on his way out._ _

__//_ _

___from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: have you said it yet? 

__TELL HIM TELL HIM TELL HIM TELL HIM TELL HIM TELL HIM_ _

___T_  
E  
L  
L 

___H_  
I  
M 

__(TELL HIM)_ _

__//_ _

__It's a Tuesday morning in early February, and the profile update is going live as soon as Mark gets to work, and he pauses in the bakery doorway, clutching his take-out cup of coffee._ _

__"The update's happening today," Mark says, as Eduardo wipes down the counter ready for the morning rush, "so I might be late home."_ _

__Eduardo freezes._ _

__It takes Mark a second to realise what he's said, and then he goes red, as hot as the coffee in his hands._ _

__"Home?" says Eduardo, in this funny tone of voice, and Mark grits his teeth, and refuses to take it back._ _

__He has a key. He has a drawer. He has a _side of the bed_ , a pillow that smells like his own shampoo, and Eduardo moves to throw an arm over him in his sleep, and, yes, fucking right it's _home_._ _

__It comes out angrily, because Mark is worse than useless at this, but it still comes out. "Yes," he says, and he feels uncomfortable because he can't fold his arms without spilling scalding hot coffee all over himself, but he keeps going, monosyllabically emphatic. "Home."_ _

__Eduardo smiles. It takes a second to happen, like he can't let it all out at once, and he looks a little blown away. Mark fidgets, and hopes. "Okay," Eduardo says, in this wavering, delighted way. "Good."_ _

__Mark nods, sharp and brusque, but he's smiling too, irrepressible. "Good," he says, back, and his voice sounds ridiculous, and this is ridiculous, and he turns on his heel and goes to work because his chest is warm and he can't stop grinning, and if he goes back to kiss Eduardo he will just never leave the shop again, and then his site will be running with sub-par profile features forever._ _

__Dustin eyes him suspiciously when he gets to work, but Mark isn't talking, keeping it close to his chest, the memory of the smile spreading slow over Eduardo's face, lighting him up._ _

__He checks the code a few times, paranoid, and then it goes up and Mark drinks three cups of coffee one after the other, drumming his fingers against the edge of his desk, just waiting for something to go wrong._ _

__Nothing goes wrong._ _

__Okay, so Mark has had a lot of caffeine in not very many hours, but he feels - odd. Jittery. It takes him a while to place it, but he thinks it's the same thing he was feeling at the last office party, looking over at Eduardo laughing next to the Wall._ _

__The update has gone well._ _

__He thinks about the last profile update, the cold fear it would go wrong, his sleepless weekend in front of the laptop screen. He thinks about the work he's done on this code, about what he's done around this code, about eating _feijoada_ and handjobs on the couch, about pornographic baking terminology, about the broken spine of his Portuguese phrase book, about sharing pizza slices, about _eu te amo_ , about _home_._ _

__It's not like he's spent the last few years of his life expecting his site to bomb every time they make a change, because he's secure enough -- some (Chris) might say too much -- in his work and himself that he knows when he's done a good job, but for all that time, Facebook has been all he's had. Not in the melodramatic, _it was my only friend_ type way that he knows some people think he might mean, when he's forced to network at various events and people ask him what his hobbies are and he tells them his job is his hobby, but still. He just means, like, if there's been a change, he's wanted to be there, in the office, just in case. _ _

__There were no mistakes in the last update. There are no mistakes in this update. And --_ _

__\-- and Mark has somewhere else to go._ _

__He is also developing a habit of making having major life realizations _in the office_ , but he can't see he didn't see that one coming. _ _

__"Mark?" Dustin asks, surprised, as Mark walks out of his office with his backpack slung over his shoulder at seven that evening. "Are you - going out?"_ _

__"I'm going home," Mark tells him, and the expression on Dustin's face is painful to watch, so fuck knows what it feels like to make._ _

__"But," he says, and Mark has never seen him at a loss for words before, so this is actually pretty glorious, "but - the - update?"_ _

__"It's fine," Mark says, on a grin, remembering. "It's going to stay fine. I've actually been here for the last few years, you know."_ _

__Dustin is gaping. Mark should leave early on update nights more often, if this is the result._ _

__"You're tempting fate!" Dustin yells, as Mark makes his way to the stairs. "You are wearing the red Roxanne dress of pride before a fall!"_ _

__"Yeah, well," Mark shouts back, over his shoulder. "Fate can blow me."_ _

__"Or Eduardo can," Dustin shouts, louder than before, and Mark grins at him from the other end of the main floor, and mimes tipping a hat in his direction, and just yells back, unabashed, "You got it."_ _

__//_ _

__Eduardo is cleaning down the tables when Mark comes into the bakery, and Mark dumps his backpack by the door and kisses him, bumping him back against the specials board._ _

__"Hello," says Eduardo, grinning, when Mark pulls back for a second, and Mark has his hands on Eduardo's hips and Eduardo's hands in the back-pockets of his jeans, and it's suddenly so obviously easy to do, suddenly effortless. It feels a little bit like everything has been pitching him forward to this, ever since he couldn't get the code out, and took a breath, and looked up at the August sunlight washing watercolour yellow through his windows._ _

__"I love you," Mark tells him, finally, and Eduardo goes wide-eyed. "But don't cry or anything, I just thought you should know - _mmph_ \- "_ _

__Eduardo hauls him in hard enough that Mark's mouth stings with it, and he gets a leg up around Mark's hip, runs a hand up Mark's back to tangle in his hair, and it's all Mark can do to try to breathe, to go with it, kissing right back._ _

__"You," pants Eduardo, when he lets Mark up for air, "are the most - " - but Mark is apparently never going to find out what he is, because Eduardo kisses him again right in the middle of his sentence, like he can't not do it, and Mark just shoves right back, until he's pretty sure there's not even daylight between them, until his wrist hurts from bracing himself against the wall._ _

__"You're closed now, right?" Mark manages, with the last vestiges of sensible thought he can find, and Eduardo leans way over to flip the open sign round, smacks the shutters closed, and drags Mark upstairs._ _

__//_ _

__Afterwards, when Mark is sticky and trying to catch his breath and vaguely aware that he is going to be sore all over in the morning, Eduardo makes him go shower while he orders take-out. Mark says, "What happened to the healthy option, Wardo?" in as deadpan a voice as he can find when he's still reeling, and Eduardo hits him with a pillow and tells him sometimes a person just really fucking needs some noodles._ _

__Mark showers, and thinks about saying _I love you_ , and doesn't feel stupid about it. Mostly he just feels stupid for not saying it earlier. He can feel Chris being proud of him, which is a little weird, but whatever. He's sort of proud of himself, a bit, for getting the fuck out of his own way._ _

__They balance the take-out on their knees on the couch and watch a terrible movie because the synopsis sounds so god-awful they can't resist it -- _when ice-dancing sensation Mariella starts receiving threatening letters at the ice-rink, can she solve her own murder before it's too late?_ (Mark picks holes in the grammar; Eduardo wants to know if Mark will be able to solve the murder before Mariella does; Mark says, "The butler did it," and Eduardo laughs, and steals a piece of his chicken) -- and Eduardo sits closer to Mark than is really necessary for the size of the couch, and Mark leans in against him as they both maneuver chopsticks around sleep-heavy fingers. The movie ends --_ _

__

__("How did you know there would be a butler?" Eduardo asks, incredulous. "You are the luckiest man on the planet."_ _

__Mark is fucked out and boneless and still turning over potential update problems, and he can't quite stop himself from thinking, sleep-drunk, _yeah, maybe I am_._ _

__Instead, he shrugs, and says, "I'm just that good," and Eduardo squawks and pokes him in the side with a chopstick, leaving a little round szechuan stain on Mark's hoodie.)_ _

__

__\-- and Mark is still picking at noodles he hasn't quite finished yet, still tapping at his laptop, because despite any grand gestures he may have made earlier in the day, he's never going to be able to switch that part of himself off completely._ _

__Eduardo reaches over and puts a hand on Mark's, arched pianist-graceful over the keyboard. Mark looks up, blinking._ _

__"So," says Eduardo, a little pink-cheeked, "I didn't get a chance to say it earlier - "_ _

__"Yeah," Mark interrupts, "because you _jumped me_."_ _

__Eduardo swats at him. "Shut up," he says. "I just, I didn't say that - "_ _

__Mark shoves more noodles in his face in case they can cure feelings-related embarrassment. They can't, it turns out, but they do taste really good._ _

__Eduardo kisses Mark's neck, and Mark almost drops his plate, almost kicks his laptop off the coffee table, reflexes sleep-slow._ _

__"I could have choked on my noodles, Wardo," he says, trying for admonishment and not even getting anywhere close._ _

__Eduardo does it again, not even a little repentant._ _

__"I love you," he says, against the curve of Mark's neck, and Mark actually does fumble his chopsticks. Eduardo laughs, softly. "Or, you know," he says, while Mark is going red and hot and flustered and grinning, "if you're going to get all emotionally stunted about it, I can say it in Portuguese and you can pretend not to understand me."_ _

__"Yeah," says Mark, shoving his plate onto the coffee table as Eduardo laughs and presses his forehead against Mark's shoulder. "Yeah, let's go with that plan."_ _

__Eduardo shifts round so he's straddling Mark, and Mark's hands go to his waist, instinctive. Less instinctive and more deliberate is the way he pushes Eduardo's shirt up so he can get his palms on Eduardo's skin, so that Eduardo rocks against him, and smiles so hugely it makes Mark go dizzy. This whole conversation is making him a little dizzy._ _

__" _Eu te amo_ ," Eduardo tells him, cupping Mark's face in his hands, and Mark swallows hard, and turns his face to kiss Eduardo's palm._ _

__" _Eu te amo_ ," he says, in case it means more in Portuguese, because he wants to say it every way he can. "I - you - Wardo - "_ _

__Eduardo's bright, genuine smile looks a little watery, and Mark rolls his eyes at him, at himself, because Eduardo is ridiculous and Mark is in love with him, so that probably says something about Mark that he should spend some time thinking about, but right now Eduardo is leaning down to lick his way into Mark's mouth as Mark falls against the back of the couch and tugs Eduardo down against him, so introspection can probably wait till later._ _

__Later, Eduardo is shirtless and sweaty and grinning, and Mark is sacked out over his chest, and distantly aware that this couch has seen a number of things it probably shouldn't have, and Eduardo makes this little sleepy, satisfied noise, and Mark throws an arm over his waist, pressing closer. He isn't worried anymore, about code, or potential crashes, or - or - anything else._ _

__"I mean it, you know," he says, quietly, in case Eduardo is asleep already. "I really mean it."_ _

__"Shh," says Eduardo, calm and sleep-slurred. "I know. Me too."_ _

__Eduardo makes it sound easy, and Mark thinks, drifting off himself, that maybe it always was._ _

__//_ _

__Mark stops by Dustin's desk on his way into his office the next morning._ _

__"Dustin," he says, standing behind Dustin's chair, and Dustin, who was there in the bar when Erica Albright said _the internet isn't written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink_ , Dustin, who linked his arm through Mark's while Mark was angry and hurt and humiliated and walked Mark home even though they were out with a group and listened to him talk about expanding to Yale and Columbia, Dustin, who said it was time they saw theFacebook in California, Dustin, who made Eduardo give Mark his number-- he spins round in his silly swivel chair and takes one look at Mark's face and knows. Mark doesn't even have to say anything, and Dustin _knows_._ _

__"Oh my god," he says, in a voice entirely different to his ordinary exuberance, and then he throws his arms around Mark, and holds on tight._ _

__Mark lets him._ _

__"Well done," Dustin says, quietly, into the side of Mark's neck. Mark could maybe be insulted by that, he thinks, but he's not. He clears his throat and pats Dustin on the back like men do when they hug in movies, but Dustin doesn't let go of him._ _

__"Hold your fucking horses," he tells Mark, as Mark starts to go red, because Dustin's desk is out on the main floor and people are _staring_. "I'm not done being proud yet, give me a second."_ _

__"I'm not a child," Mark grumbles. "You don't need to be _proud_ of me."_ _

__"Shut the fuck up," says Dustin. "We're having a moment."_ _

__When he does let Mark go, he sits back down in his chair and grins up at him._ _

__"Back to work, peons!" he commands. "Don't be jealous, there's more than enough of the Dustinator to go around."_ _

__Mark groans, and starts walking away, but something bounces off his back, and he turns around again, eyebrow raised._ _

__Dustin gives him the thumbs up, and a much more Dustin-like wink, and Mark can't help grinning back at him._ _

__//_ _

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: and then we never speak of it 

__I told him._ _

__He said it back._ _

__THIS EMAIL NEVER HAPPENED._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: I am not speaking about it 

__but if I were, I would say, OF COURSE HE DID._ _

__and well done._ _

__and I should quit right now and start my own advice column._ _

__

___from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com_  
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com  
subj: no-one's stopping you 

__but._ _

__thank you._ _

__

___from: chris.hughes@facebook.com_  
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com  
subj: don't hurt yourself on the feelings wheel 

__but._ _

__you're welcome._ _

__//_ _

__Valentine's Day is coming up, and if Mark had thought Thanksgiving was bad, it had nothing on this. Eduardo spends practically every waking second with his nose in his scrapbook, scribbling in pink pen on every page, endless sugar cookie refinements, ideas for novelty cupcakes, rough sketches of figurines annotated with incomprehensible shorthand scrawls, _marzip? fdt? ed ppr?_ Mark peers over his shoulder and Eduardo nibbles the end of his pen and furrows his eyebrows at the pages and reaches up with his free hand to pat Mark's arm absently, and Mark has a sudden sympathy for anyone who's around him while he's wired in. Not a lasting sympathy, obviously, because his job is much more important than anything trivial like _cleaning the kitchen_ or whatever it was Chris used to try and get his attention for while he was first building theFacebook, but still. At least Eduardo pats his hand once in a while, or looks up to give him sheepish, tired smiles with his mouth all covered in pink ink where he's bitten through the end of the pen without noticing. Mark does not look up when he's wired in, apart from when Eduardo falls asleep on his shoulder on the couch, and lets his scrapbook slip from sleep-loose fingers onto the floor. Mark picks up all the newspaper cuttings and picture printouts that fall out onto the floor, and prods Eduardo awake to get him into bed. _ _

__Eduardo is so tired some nights at the moment that he crawls into bed and collapses against Mark's shoulder, pressing exhausted, open-mouthed kisses against the curve of bone and falling bonelessly asleep in minutes. Mark had always thought that falling asleep before your head hits the pillows was just an expression, but Eduardo seems to be managing it, conked out almost as soon as he hits the mattress. On the one hand, Mark is wondering whether he should maybe be a little bit worried at the same time as being aware that this is exceptionally black pot et cetera, and on the other, he's missing the sex. On a third hand, which Mark needs to grow to make this work and which would also make eating while coding a lot more efficient, he sort of likes Eduardo making his arm go numb, the weight of him against his side. Eduardo loves him. Mark loves Eduardo. As far as Mark is concerned, Eduardo could make his entire body go numb._ _

__He apparently actually does make Mark's _brain_ go numb, because that is a ridiculous thing to think._ _

__Admittedly it is sort of amusing to see someone else work like Mark does, but the main thing about this is -- they haven't had sex in, like, _weeks_._ _

__Okay, maybe it's only been ten days, but that is _practically_ weeks, especially when Eduardo keeps stretching out tired muscles on the couch and his stupid expensive shirt rides up over his stupid tan stomach, or when Eduardo is asleep all over Mark and smells really good, part cologne, part _cake_ , or when Eduardo is just generally in Mark's vicinity and _not having sex with him_. Mark doesn't want to be, whatever, a needy loser or anything, but he said _I love you_ and then the sex _stopped_. He's pretty sure that's not the right way round._ _

__But he lets Eduardo work himself into the ground, because as tired as he is at night, it seems to make him happy to trundle up the stairs to the apartment covered in flour and the odd fleck of frosting, or to look up from his third new recipe of the night to see Mark sitting on the bakery kitchen table with his legs dangling off the edge and coding, keeping him company, and Mark is not going to be the person who gets in the way of Eduardo being happy._ _

__He's just saying. There could be more sex._ _

__Enough is sort of enough after about three more days of this, and Mark follows Eduardo into the shower one morning, shucking off boxers and t-shirt and leaving them in a heap on the kitchen floor on the way. Eduardo is standing under the spray, half-dazed because it genuinely does take him a twenty-minute shower to become a human in the morning. Eduardo also owns, like, hair product and body moisturizer, but Mark's time ratio of waking up to being a functioning human is not at all favourable to his not snapping and committing mass homicide before his second cup of coffee, some days his third, so he's not going to begrudge a guy his morning coping mechanism._ _

__All this means is that Eduardo is still heavy-eyed and slow when Mark steps into the shower behind him, pressing himself along the long, wet line of Eduardo's back and running his hands flat, deliberate, down Eduardo's chest._ _

__"What," says Eduardo, sleepily, rough, half turning his head to look back at Mark, and Mark kisses him gently on his jaw line, just behind his ear, the corner of his mouth he can reach, and says, muffled, "It's been two weeks, Wardo, okay," and reaches around and down for Eduardo's dick. He's hard already, and Mark doesn't know whether it's for him or just because Eduardo is like that in the mornings, but either way, it makes Eduardo groan and lean his head further back against Mark's shoulder, his throat already working round a swallow._ _

__"Mark," Eduardo says, still in his sleep-rough voice, and Mark kisses him again, starting to move his hand, slow, careful, and says, "Just, shut up, Wardo," and Eduardo makes this content, turned-on sound, and brings an arm back to stroke Mark's cheek. Mark presses further into Eduardo's back, and lets the water run down over them both, and brings Eduardo off as slowly as he can until Eduardo is making these choked, needy little noises right by Mark's ear, and Mark is so turned on and the shower is so steam-filled that he thinks he might legitimately pass out._ _

__Eduardo's knees actually buckle when he comes, and Mark will take the opportunity later to mock him endlessly for it, but right now he just groans and comes too, holding on hard to Eduardo's hips to keep them both upright, leaning heavily against the tiled wall._ _

__"Mark," says Eduardo, sort of breathlessly chiding, when Mark presses kisses to the back of Eduardo's neck, breathing in water droplets and morning sweat, unwilling to let him go yet, "Mark, I'm going to be _late_."_ _

__"Mmph," Mark contradicts, muffled by Eduardo's skin against his mouth, running a palm over the top of Eduardo's thigh, trying to touch all of him at once. "Not important."_ _

__"It's - fuck - sort of important," Eduardo insists, but then he leans back a little further, and Mark curls round him to wash Eduardo's stomach clean, his inner thighs. Eduardo bites his lip and shifts against him, and it's almost worth going without sex for a while, for this._ _

__Not that Mark is a huge advocate of going without sex in general, obviously. Just - this is almost definitely worth it._ _

__The bakery only opens ten minutes late that day, which Mark considers a great testament to his powers of self-restraint. Eduardo laughs when he says this, later, and tells him he doesn't have a self-restraining bone in his body, and Mark makes some horrendously easy and crude remark about all the boners in his body, and Eduardo bites at his earlobe, which should not be as sexy as it is, and then they don't say much of anything comprehensible for a while._ _

__//_ _

__There's a pre-Valentine's Day mixer or something in the office that Thursday, although Mark is pretty sure that the heart-shaped banners slung hastily over doorways in the afternoon are just to give this whole thing unfounded legitimacy as a front for people getting drunk and making poor decisions in the name of socializing or team-building or something else unnecessary. Mark can socialize if he wants to, and he's already _built a team_ by _hiring people_ in the first place, so he definitely doesn't need to trust fall into their arms or anything. He’s pretty sure not everyone would catch him, at that. He thinks, out of nowhere, that Eduardo would catch him._ _

__Anyway._ _

__There had actually been a conversation about whether or not it was politic to call it a Valentine's Day party, with Chris, as ever, erring on the side of caution with the temper of a man who sees what bullshit his job can occasionally be, and Dustin throwing himself dramatically over desks and bewailing that if greeting card companies got to make shit loads of money making single people feel bad, why couldn't they spent a small amount of money on making sure the single people on the Facebook staff felt excellent because they had access to a large amount of spiked punch and office party gossip? Chris had given in mostly to make Dustin shut up, Mark is pretty sure, and also because Chris gives in to Dustin more than he would like to admit._ _

__Mark was mostly just deeply chagrined that that conversation needed to be a part of his life at all, and coded some more in case that would make it stop._ _

__Eduardo even promised to surface from his haze of delicately colour-coordinating frosting to come to the thing. Mark didn't so much ask as mention it was happening, and Eduardo had said, "Sounds great, I'd love to come," in a way that wasn't so much presumptuous as it was understanding Mark's way of asking him, which was handy, because Mark had no desire to sound like he's asking Eduardo to prom or anything._ _

__Dustin comes in and drapes a paper chain of hearts around Mark's neck like a lei around four Thursday afternoon, and when Mark looks snappishly up at him, he sees everyone else already abandoning their desks. Dustin grins down at him._ _

__"Come celebrate love and happiness, Mark," he says. "I am single and need reassurance around this time of year, or I start thinking about Alsatians chewing on my decomposing shins and then I accidently drink all the vodka."_ _

__"You always drink all the vodka," Mark tells him, but he gets up from his desk anyway._ _

__He goes out into the main office, and just as someone turns on some music, something popular that Mark doesn't know or like, the door from the stairwell opens, and Eduardo walks in. He looks around for a minute like he's taking it all in, like Chris and Dustin had when they first had a real office, the first big office after the angel investment, like they couldn't believe what they'd been part of. Eduardo looks like that, but a little different. He doesn't look disbelieving, and he's been here before so it's not, like, the _holy shit this is Facebook_ thing that some people get when they walk in, relatives of some of the programmers or whatever - this is - Mark thinks - it's - _ _

__Well, whatever it is, it is tempered by the unbelievably ridiculous dance Eduardo does in his direction, his arms wide, one of the stupid things he does to horrible music in the kitchen while he bakes._ _

__Mark is grinning at him despite himself before he can do anything about it._ _

__"I am so proud of you," Eduardo tells him, drawing closer, with his customary earnestness, and Mark goes pink to his ears, and Dustin makes a sound like he wants to kiss Eduardo on the mouth._ _

__Mark actually does kiss Eduardo on the mouth, because he is his to kiss._ _

__"Why?" he says, pulling back after a second, when he's gotten both his point across and Eduardo's mouth red._ _

__"Why what?" says Eduardo. In the background, Dustin squeaks, "Oh my god, Mark, you kissed his pride away, you are a kissing _magician_ ," but Mark is spared having to fire him or stand on his foot because Chris blessedly materializes and drags him away to the unnecessarily pink bowl of punch. Dustin doesn't need any help in finding his way to the punch, Mark thinks, mostly because he's pretty sure Dustin's already sampled some of that particular alcoholic ware, but it does at least get him to go away, so Mark's going to give that one a pass._ _

__"Oh, right," says Eduardo, rubbing a sheepish hand over the back of his neck. "The being proud thing."_ _

__"Yes," says Mark. "I mean, apart from the obvious."_ _

__"The obvious?"_ _

__Mark waves a hand to indicate all the computers, their Wall, the big screen display. " _Facebook_ ," he says, and Eduardo laughs._ _

__"Oh yeah," he says. "That."_ _

__"You disparage my life's work," Mark says._ _

__Eduardo says, "You constantly mock my profession."_ _

__"But I'm CEO," says Mark, deadpan. "You're a _baker_."_ _

__"I could bake you," says Eduardo, which doesn't make any sense, but he's smiling, and Mark is smiling, and there are pink paper hearts all over the walls, and it doesn't really matter._ _

__"Getting back to my original point," Mark says, because he doesn't let things go easily, "although I wouldn't mind a detour into an explanation for the dancing, but you sounded like you were about to give me a compliment, so let's go back to that."_ _

__Eduardo smiles, because he apparently likes it when Mark says things like that. Mark likes that._ _

__"Because," he says, and he reaches out and takes Mark's hand, "I wasn't there to be proud when you _started_ Facebook. Consider it making up for lost time."_ _

__The hearts on the walls have nothing on the colour of Mark's face right now. "Oh," he says, which is a reasonable reaction in anyone's book. _Mark's_ book is Facebook and short reactions are definitely okay in that one. "Okay, I guess." _ _

__He thinks about Eduardo saying _I want him to be proud of me, and I don't know if he is_ and it suddenly means more, what Eduardo is saying. It means a lot anyway, because Mark has been ruined by feelings, but that still makes a difference._ _

__"You too," Mark says, in a hot, flustered rush. "I mean, I am. Of you. You should probably know that."_ _

__Eduardo laughs, but squeezes his fingers. "You are a ridiculous human being," he says._ _

__"Dustin is chasing people with mistletoe in February," Mark tells him, changing the subject as quickly as he can, spotting Dustin doing just that over Eduardo's shoulder. "I should get points for not doing that, at least."_ _

__"I'll bear that in mind," says Eduardo, and kisses him again._ _

__At some point Mark is going to have to remember that when he's at work he should be professional or something, but he is unprofessional enough to turn up to work unshowered and in yesterday's clothes when there's a big enough problem or when he's just not gone home overnight, so he thinks his employees should be able to deal with him kissing Eduardo in the middle of the office. No-one's really looking, anyway. Mark thinks the lure of the punch bowl is stronger than the thought of watching their boss get macked on by a skinny, beaming, mop-haired idiot, and then he thinks he maybe needs to hire better employees, because anyone who would choose punch, or _anything_ , over Eduardo is clearly not in full possession of their intellectual faculties. _ _

__Then he reconsiders that again, because his employees have enough sense not to gawk at their boss while he's forgetting himself and letting his hands wander all over Eduardo in the middle of the office party, and that counts a whole lot in their favour._ _

__"Mark," says Eduardo, grinning against his jaw, "not that I'm complaining, but do you think you should maybe get your hands off me while we're in public?"_ _

__"Shan't," says Mark, churlishly, but he lets his hands drop to his sides anyway._ _

__Over Eduardo's shoulder, he can see Dustin bearing down on an unsuspecting Chris with a piece of mistletoe almost bigger than his head. Where did he get mistletoe in February anyway?_ _

__Not that Mark really cares._ _

__"So," he says, and Eduardo must hear the new tone in his voice just in that one word, because he's going anticipatorily pink, which just makes Mark want to molest him in front of his entire staff with callous abandon. "We're in public, then."_ _

__Eduardo laces his fingers in with Mark's; Mark is shivering, just slightly, keyed up. He can't stop grinning. Eduardo says, leaning down close to Mark's ear, "Do you want to talk to me alone for a minute?"_ _

__"Sure," says Mark, like it's no big deal, and they make their way to the bathroom._ _

__If they're followed out into the corridor by a Chris-flavoured squawk of indignation, well, then, Chris should have taken better anti-Dustin precautions._ _

__//_ _

__Valentine's Day is a Saturday, and Mark wakes up alone in Eduardo's bed at about midday. Even from the opposite end of the apartment to the stairs he can smell brownies. He's pulling on a t-shirt when he bumps against the end of the bed, and something falls out from the duvet. It's a scrap of paper, and it says, in Eduardo's scrawling handwriting, _DO NOT COME DOWNSTAIRS BEFORE SIX, I AM WARNING YOU. love, ?__ _

__Mark snorts, and rummages through the heap of his clothes on the floor to find his phone, and types out, _my secret admirer is so demanding_._ _

__Eduardo replies, _and also a total mystery, I am sure._ _ _

__Five minutes later, when Mark is standing in front of the door to the stairs, he gets, _I AM SERIOUS MARK DO NOT COME DOWN THESE STAIRS GET BACK TO YOUR LAPTOP.__ _

___you are not the boss of me_ , he sends back, but he obligingly goes and codes, listening to the coffee machine downstairs make rocket launching noises on and off throughout the afternoon._ _

__He showers, at five, because it seems like a good idea, and then definitely does not jump when his phone goes again, half an hour later._ _

___HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY MARKY MARK_ , Dustin has sent. _I HOPE YOU VALEN WARDO'S TINE.__ _

__And then, before Mark can even hit reply: _VALEN HIM GOOD. TINE HIM HARD. TINE HIM ALL OVER HIS GIRAFFE NECK.__ _

___what is your deal with zoo animals?_ Mark sends, and Dustin replies, _whatever dude you are a panda, play nice.__ _

__Mark turns his phone off._ _

__//_ _

__At six, he goes down into the bakery kitchen to find Eduardo looking rumpled and a little harried, but his face breaks into a smile when Mark walks through the door._ _

__Mark blurts, out of nowhere, "Do I still have a tab?"_ _

__"Sorry?" says Eduardo, who is tracking the length of Mark's body with promisingly dark eyes, making Mark bite his lip to keep his grin in check. "What?"_ _

__"A tab," Mark repeats. "You said I had a clean slate, do you remember?"_ _

__Eduardo leans back against the table. "Yeah," he says, and Mark trembles, overcome, just for a second, with how far they've come._ _

__That's stupid. He must have caught some kind of Valentine's Day disease -- but, looking at Eduardo in his wrinkled blue-grey shirt leaning against the kitchen table, he decides he can live with that, for now._ _

__Eduardo says, "How opposed are you to the idea of getting dirty?"_ _

__"I just had a shower," Mark says, inanely, and then, taking in the colour rising in Eduardo's cheeks, "Why?"_ _

__Eduardo moves to one side, and there is a glass bowl filled with Valentine-pink frosting behind him on the table. Eduardo raises an eyebrow at him, and Mark hears, again, because it's never far from his mind, _I'm not always very nice.__ _

__And okay, maybe it takes Mark a second to click properly, because he has spent the last couple of weeks watching Eduardo make so much frosting that he just expects the glass bowl to be sitting on the bakery table all the time, but then he looks at the curl to Eduardo's mouth, how dark his eyes are, and he gets the message fast._ _

__He shrugs, as casually as he can. "Not especially," he says, and Eduardo takes one step across the room to him, and kisses him, messy, rough, until Mark's head is spinning._ _

__"Good," he says, "because I was thinking of fucking you on the floor."_ _

__Mark laughs, a little reflexive thing, shocked, wanting._ _

__"That's hygienic," he says, exhilarated, delighted. "Could you get closed down for that?"_ _

__Eduardo takes Mark's face in his hands and licks into Mark's mouth again, dirty, until Mark inhales sharply and grabs his hips with tight, desperate fingers. "I won't tell if you won't," says Eduardo, grinning wickedly at him, and tugs him down to the floor._ _

__And so that is how Mark ends up lying on his back on a bakery's kitchen floor, covered in mostly licked off frosting, with Eduardo nosing up under his jaw, biting his way back down, and yes, okay, he should definitely have seen this coming from the moment he started hiding behind his laptop to watch Eduardo lick frosting off his fingertips._ _

__This is one time Mark does not care in the slightest about not being three steps ahead of the game because Eduardo is currently licking frosting off the inside curve of Mark's right elbow, holding Mark's wrist over his head against the hard tile floor, which should probably be more sticky and less of a turn on than it is. And, because Eduardo is a high-achiever or whatever, he's also balls-deep inside Mark and just _not moving_ , and Mark is bright red and whining, and, fuck it, if anyone thinks they could stay unmoved by any of that, then they are clinically insane._ _

__"Fuck," says Mark, wrecked, bucking his hips up arrhythmically, taking shallow breaths, "Wardo, fuck - please - "_ _

__Eduardo leans down, holding Mark's gaze, and bites at Mark's nipple, swirling his tongue over the frosting with exaggerated relish. He starts jerking Mark off in earnest, curling pulls of his hand, and snaps his hips, and Mark comes all over his own stomach, strung out, body bowing up off the kitchen floor. He heaves in huge, airless breaths; Eduardo smirks against his chest and Mark doesn't even have the energy to be indignant._ _

__He's actually got pins and needles in his toes, which should possibly be vaguely alarming, but the fucks that Mark gives at this moment are utterly and completely negligible. He shudders as Eduardo slides out of him, and shudders harder when Eduardo slips his fingers inside instead, crooking them to press just _there_._ _

__"Fuck," Mark says, in a rasp of a voice, trembling. "Jesus, Wardo."_ _

__Eduardo crooks his fingers again, deliberate, and Mark shakes, everything too much, with jangling, too sharp pleasure._ _

__"Good?" Eduardo asks, sliding his fingers out, and Mark bites down on a doubtlessly ruined noise, refusing to let Eduardo win, because, even now, he's just that petty._ _

__"That is such a redundant question," Mark says, because, seriously, he's splayed out and sweating against the kitchen tiles, and his voice sounds like it's mostly rough breath, and Eduardo is grinning, self-satisfied, and it's simultaneously ridiculously attractive and _unbelievably_ infuriating. The two sort of work together to make Mark want to blow him till he's sobbing Mark's name, undone._ _

__"It's all right if you need to take a moment," says Eduardo, crawling up to bite at Mark's collarbone while Mark tries to remember how to make his limbs work again, and he sounds so pleased, so smug, so fucking self-composed despite the fact that Mark can feel how hard he is, his hips pressing insistently against Mark's thigh, that Mark groans and rolls them over right then, muscles protesting, pushing at Eduardo's chest with one hand until Eduardo's shoulders hit the tile. Eduardo grins, and fumbles the condom off, and, okay, Mark is definitely not cleaning this fucking kitchen after this. He will watch. And laugh. But not clean._ _

__He bends at the waist and just takes Eduardo straight in his mouth, before he can say anything else, and Eduardo goes, " _Fuck_ ," gratifyingly, straight away. Mark isn't gentle, and he uses his teeth more than is polite and twists his hand around the base too sharply, and Eduardo bucks up and says, brokenly, "Mark, Mark," and comes._ _

__Mark collapses back on the floor the moment Eduardo's done, and throws an arm over his eyes._ _

__"So," he says, as steadily as he can, listening to Eduardo panting unevenly, coming down, beside him. "Happy Valentine's Day, I guess."_ _

__Eduardo pants out a laugh, and rolls sloppily over to put his face on Mark's chest despite the fact that Mark is slowly becoming uncomfortably aware of how sticky he is, just all over, smeared frosting and cooling sweat and come, his inner thighs wet, the tile against his back wet too, and how the hell did this become his life?_ _

__Not that he's complaining._ _

__Eduardo presses kisses against the centre of Mark's chest, throwing an arm over Mark's waist. Soon, Mark is going to start being bothered about how naked he is on the floor of Eduardo's fucking place of work, but that's going to be another minute at least. For now, he just puts an arm over Eduardo's shoulders, and lets himself have this._ _

__"Happy Valentine's Day," Eduardo says, completely sincerely, and Mark is in a relationship with a guy who spent the last three weeks researching the best way to make fondant hearts, and he is so fucking in love it is just plain stupid._ _

__//_ _

__Seriously._ _

__Fondant hearts._ _

__//_ _

__Mark wakes up with the duvet twisted around his legs and his face mashed into the space between the two sets of pillows, and it takes him a minute, grimacing around the taste of his own breath and adjusting to the idea of being conscious, to notice the other side of the bed is empty. He's rolling over, bleary, when there's a voice from the doorway. Mark blinks until Eduardo comes into focus, morning-rumpled._ _

__"Morning," says Eduardo, standing there at the foot of the bed with a tray in his hands, wearing a tee and black boxer-briefs and nothing else, with his hair still stupid from sleep and the marks of the pillows still pressed faintly pink into his cheeks, like he rolled straight out of bed and into the kitchen, to make this before Mark could wake up and get up too. He adds, redundantly, "I made pancakes."_ _

__"I see that," Mark says._ _

__He's thinking distantly about the added traffic to the site overnight, this morning, relationship statuses changing and wall posts multiplying with congratulations, celebrations, commiserations, the potential holiday crash always looming in his mind, but he's also looking at Eduardo holding a breakfast tray and smiling at him, and he thinks, if he gets this wrong, he'll be the stupidest man alive._ _

__Eduardo rolls his eyes, warm-heartedly, and comes to sit down on the side of the bed._ _

__Somehow Mark has got himself not only an actual person who actively wants to spend time with _him_ , but who also bakes and makes pancakes and cuts them into hearts for the morning after Valentine's Day and brings fucking breakfast to bed on a tray with maple syrup in a little heart-shaped ramekin. It's so revolting, and so lovely, and the sort of thing a million girls would probably kill to use as their Facebook status, and it's almost too saccharine for Mark to put up with, but he supposes he can find it in himself to tolerate it._ _

__Mark raises himself up on his elbows and just leans over to kiss the pillow creases on Eduardo's face, and then to kiss his mouth, and to slide a hand up under the worn blue cotton of his tee, and Eduardo makes a sound of acquiescence and also of forgetting about the pancakes, and presses Mark down onto his back, and leans in to suck a hickey just under his jaw._ _

__Half a lazy, handsy hour later, Eduardo hangs over the edge of the bed to pick up the breakfast tray and frowns._ _

__"The pancakes will be cold now," he says, like no-one ever invented the microwave, and Mark leans over to grab the tray off him, and then he actually looks properly at the pancakes for the first time._ _

__Oh, god._ _

__Okay, is that -- are they --_ _

__"Wardo," Mark says, in this not entirely even voice, "are they _pony-shaped pancakes_?"_ _

__"I don't know," says Eduardo, grinning wickedly, self-satisfied, and Mark's stomach is hot and he's so stupidly in love. "They could be horses. I'm not an expert in equine-shaped consumables."_ _

__"I hate you," says Mark, and Eduardo throws his head back and laughs, and then Mark drags him back down onto the bed._ _

__When they surface again -- because, okay, there is morning sex and then there is the fact that Eduardo has made pancakes and no-one is eating them -- Mark gingerly picks up a pony pancake by its little flimsy leg._ _

__"Please don't eat me," says Eduardo, in this stupid high-pitched voice, resting his chin on Mark's shoulder. "I'm too young to die!"_ _

__"Fuck off," Mark tells the pancake, and takes a bite._ _

__Eduardo is laughing into the crook of Mark's neck. "Pony murderer," he accuses._ _

__Mark leans over and folds another pancake in half, eating it with his fingers and no syrup. It tastes fine. It tastes like a regular pancake, but cold, and a little sticky. He makes exaggerated chewing noises, puffs his cheeks out just to watch Eduardo squawk and roll his eyes all fondly._ _

__"At least let me warm them up," Eduardo says. "Let them go warmly to their deaths."_ _

__"They're _fine_ ," Mark says, reaching over to dip the bitten end of the pancake in the little syrup ramekin. "See?" _ _

__Eduardo makes a face, but then he darts in and bites into the pancake roll in Mark's hand before Mark can, licking deliberately at Mark's fingers. Mark makes a noise of outrage, and dips his finger in the syrup and draws a sticky line down Eduardo's cheek, and then Eduardo just laughs and tips the whole ramekin over Mark's bare chest, sleep-warm, and just as Mark is reacting, he ducks down and starts to lick the syrup away. Mark swats at Eduardo's head in fake protest, but he lets himself be pushed back into the mess of pillows and duvet, and neither of them bat an eyelid when the breakfast tray gets kicked to the floor._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough Portuguese translations:
> 
> **o cotovelo, o pescoço, o peitoral** : the elbow, the neck, the throat  
>  **caralho** : fuck  
>  **com licença, onde fica o banheiro?** : excuse me, where is the bathroom?  
>  **eu sou dos Estados Unidos** : I'm from the US  
>  **me desculpe, mas eu não entendo Portugûes completamente, você fala inglês?** : I'm sorry, I don't fully understand Portuguese, do you speak English?  
>  **o açúcar** : sugar  
>  **você tá cansado** : you're tired  
>  **bom dia** : good morning  
>  **eu te amo** : I love you  
>  **obrigado**

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://moogle62.livejournal.com/115335.html). A million bajillion thanks to everyone involved in hauling me through this, including but not limited to ilovemybaby on lj for the Portuguese help and novembersmith for the EVERYTHING.
> 
> Some other thoughts:
> 
> \- when I was going through this to upload here, I remembered that when I wrote it, same sex marriage wasn't legal in California. It really threw me, which was kind of nice because I got to be like, ah, okay, maybe things won't be shitty forever.  
> \- also I wrote this like four years ago and the POV character is an Aaron Sorkin version of Mark Zuckerberg, neither of which are excuses but I felt like it was important to mention that, like, the casual _girl_ used derogatorily also super threw me when I read it back this time.
> 
> ALSO CHECK OUT THESE FANTASTIC PIECES OF ART OH MY GOD sometimes I still think about these two and am just like WHAT THE FUCK, SOMEONE DID THIS FOR SOMETHING I WROTE?????? god. GOD. LOOK UPON THESE MIGHTY ARTS AND DESPAIR etc etc:
> 
> \- [THIS](http://officerbobrovsky.tumblr.com/post/12360074128/sweet-on-you-by-mooging) gooooorgeous cover by [officerbobrovsky](http://officerbobrovsky.tumblr.com/)  
> \- [THIS](http://lordvanquisher.tumblr.com/post/4036469064/wip-of-fanart-of-bakery-au-yo-i-also-have-an) INSANELY AMAZING piece of art by [lordvanquisher](http://lordvanquisher.tumblr.com/), which made me cry when I first saw it and still does today. Shh, don't tell.
> 
> And for those of you that want to know what happens next - I promise, one day, I'll write it.


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